On April 20, 2017, the Limoges Hospital was convicted for not having diagnosed Down syndrome in a baby girl prior to her birth in 2010.
The parents of baby girl Maylis, who has Down syndrome, have been attempting for several years to press charges against the hospital. They accuse the doctor of not having diagnosed their child’s disability prior to birth, as mentioned in the hearing last March 30.
The court judged that the mother did not have the opportunity “to choose an abortion” neither to “prepare for the birth of a baby with Down’s syndrome”. The medical center is being fined to pay 50,000€ to the mother and 30,000€ to the father.
Dr. Xavier Mirabel, Alliance VITA’s Medical Advisor:
The justice system thus approves a requirement for successful prenatal selection to diagnose babies who are not perfect. As I already underlined after the hearing on March 30: isn’t it shocking that, under the assumption that a disability could have been detected in-utero, which could have led to an abortion, these families receive more aid than those with children having disabilities which were not diagnosed before birth? As far as « losing the opportunity to abort », how can this not be interpreted as an extremely violent declaration?