On Tort Liability for “Wrongful Life”

Abstract

During the short period since the middle of the present century the courts of more than one country have been called upon to deal with unprecedented claims: actions against a parent in respect of his liability for the plaintiff's birth under handicap, whether physical (congenital disease) or social (illegitimacy). Proceedings have also been taken against the State of New York, to hold it liable for an institution for which it was responsible, a Manhattan hospital, which failed to prevent a rape from which the birth resulted.Together with our juridical interest in the solution of the problem—and perhaps even preceding it—we are curious to understand why it has not arisen before and now suddenly emerges simultaneously in a number of countries without apparently any mutual influence or awareness.