Doctors, jurists and campaigners for the disabled were outraged today by a decision from France's highest court of appeal that gives a child born with a handicap the right to financial compensation if the mother was not given the chance of an abortion.
The controversial judgment confirmed a landmark decision last November - known as the Perruche case - which was widely described as establishing in law a disabled child's "right not to be born."
The Cour de Cassation was ruling on a plea lodged by the families of three children - all born with physical deformities - who claimed that if doctors had not failed to spot the disabilities in the womb the pregnancies would have been terminated.
Meeting exceptionally in plenary session, the court's judges decided that the precedent set by the Perruche case - in which a mentally-retarded boy was awarded damages because he had not been aborted - remained valid "as long as a causal link can be established with an error committed by a doctor."
The ruling came as a surprise because the Perruche decision had been widely condemned as unethical, and many believed the court would seek to reverse it.
In a furious reaction the Collective To Stop Discrimination against the Disabled (CCH), which was set up after the Perruche case, said the decision was an incitement to eugenics.
"This is a real act of phobia. Now parents are going to be attacked and seen as irresponsible because they gave birth to a handicapped child," it said in a statement.
Doctors had warned that the Perruche ruling, if confirmed, would encourage them to recommend abortions at the slightest hint of a disability in order to avoid the risk of being sued later for malpractice.
"The ruling means that the handicapped have no place in our society," said Mr Yves Richard, a lawyer representing the medical profession. "There is a real risk of this starting a process that ends with the search for the perfect child."
The three children in the case are aged between nine and 11. One has a malformation of the spine, and the two others were born with only one arm.
AFP