Something Moore

My latest frustration with my legal learning (torts in particular) is a wonderful cause of action called "wrongful life". Now most of you have heard of wrongful death. Wrongful death allows for money to be paid to a victim's family by the individual who caused a death.

In the wrongful life case, a doctor failed to properly diagnose a pregnant lady's illness. She gave birth to a child who suffered several physical and mental handicaps as a result of the woman's illness she had while pregnant. Yes this is a terribly tragic story. The child sues the doctor and claims "wrongful life"... Basically he claims his mother would have aborted him had she only known her baby would be born with these horrible birth defects, and that being aborted would be better than having lived a life so tortured by the physical and mental handicaps. ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?!?!?

I'm not going to jump into the abortion debate here, I'll save that for another fun blog, but I would like to discuss the absurdity of this claim.

For instance, I know a child who suffers from spina bifida. If you've never heard of this disease it's a horrible handicap where the spinal column never closes and many health affects are felt over the child's lifetime. In fact, many children with this disease do not live long because of their physical problems. From what I understand, spina bifida is minimized, if not eliminated by taking folic acid during pregnancy. The doctor failed to inform this Cole's mother of this fact and consequently her baby has led a life plagued by many medical problems. Anyone who knows Cole has been blessed by him. He is an amazing child who provides inspiration to anyone who meets him.

Now, I'm sure raising Cole has not been easy. (And honestly I do not know what his mother's feelings on abortion are.) However, I do not believe that either Cole or his mother would believe his life would have been better had he been aborted.

The court makes the statement that "negligent medical treatment deprives the parents of the option to terminate a pregnancy to avoid the birth of a defective child." DEFECTIVE CHILD???? What are we ordering here a new car and you got a lemon? This is a child... a person. You don't custom order your child. And what if your idea of a perfect child is one with a genius IQ and good looks for a modeling career then your child comes out with an average (or below average) IQ and a funny nose? Is this child now defective and you can trade them in for a better model? Would it have been better that the child was never born at all?

The real crux of the matter before the court is the doctor's negligence in failing to diagnose the mother's illness caused the child to be born handicap and that is why the court allows the cause of action. I realize I took my example to the extreme but the point is made that this is ridiculous.

In the end the court allowed recovery only for the extra medical expenses associated with the child's handicaps. I was glad the court did not allow for recovery for the "general damages" which would have placed a financial value on living an "impaired life" vs. a "normal life". After all, how do you know what a normal life is?

Some things in life take a bit longer to learn than others. This week I've definitely learned I need to listen to my body. Last weekend we had planned to go to an OU football game with several friends. I wasn't feeling all that hot and really didn't think I should go. On top of not feeling well the temperature was supposed to be around 40F with a blustery wind and all of this was a bad combination. I didn't listen to myself and now I'm sick. I would like to say I had a good time at the game and my many layers kept me mostly warm, but I have learned my lesson. From now on I will listen to my body and not do activities when I know I should not participate.

PS. Keep in mind this is like a New Year's resolution, which means I will probably break it the next time my friends want to go have a good time and I'm not feeling well. I'll still tag along in spite of my better judgment!

Most people who know me realize I'm not a procrastinator. I like my tasks to be done early, or at least on-time. I worry if I'm not ahead of schedule and constantly feel the push of deadlines. However, I do have one itsy bitsy item that has slipped its schedule... my outlines.

The outline is this mysterious document that is supposed to compress all of your class knowledge from the semester into a convenient document that you can effectively memorize within a few days and thus pass your finals. This would seem VERY important since the joy of law school is relying on one grade at the end of the semester to decide your academic fate.

Yet, somehow, I have let myself lag in the "outline generating" department. My lack of interest in outlining has nothing to do with the "need" for an outline or the "importance" of the outline. Instead, I'm dreading the outline. It is intimidating to contemplate writing a document that determines my academic future.

So here I sit surrounded by my contracts notes wondering exactly how much information needs to go in the outline. I have started on version two and I still seem to be struggling to really get going. So I guess I'll put away the blog and get back to the outline... Here's to Lucy v. Zehmer!

Today I performed my first pottery firing. I acquired a kiln several months ago, but the kiln needed a few repairs. As always happens those repairs were pushed to the back burner as school preparation were all engrossing this summer. Clay and I finally made the kiln a priority and got it back in working order a couple of weeks ago. Today I did a bisque firing and I can't wait to see how everything turned out. A bisque firing is the initial firing that converts clay into a ceramic. Bisque form is very porous and not finished. I will still have to glaze the pottery but it's fun to have finished the initial step.

I find I feel like a kid at Christmas. I really want to peek inside and see how things came out, but it will take all night to cool the kiln before we get open the kiln. My firing was to Cone 06, which is about 1830F, so it's pretty hot in there. What is really exciting about this is I've never performed a firing by myself. I have helped out with several since I was involved in pottery throughout high school so I knew the basic mechanics but I had never "flown solo"; so to speak. Anyhow, I just thought I'd share this with all of you out in blog reading land. Stay tuned... I may even post pictures of the finished product.

Yesterday I completely freaked out. My "to do" list at home grown and grown over the past few weeks. Having such precious little free time I always felt it was a waste to vacuum when I could have a good conversation with Clay. So chores like mowing the lawn and the general deep clean of the house had gone unchecked. (Don't worry we were still washing dishes, but only because we have a dish washer!) Yesterday I got home and the cat had tipped over my office trash and strung papers all over the room. I was FURIOUS!!! Then I went to the backyard to get the dogs where they had begun digging my trench to China (thanks so much). I couldn't take it any longer and I flipped. Suddenly I went into hyper-drive mode and decided that the whole house would be scrubbed before Clay got home... and I did it. I mowed the lawn, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed and dusted. Basically I did my fall cleaning in about 2.5 hours. It's amazing what an extra cup of coffee can do for you in the morning.

Clay and I had a great time this weekend attending a college friend's wedding. The location was beautiful and it was really a great time. The best part was seeing several people I have missed for the past couple of years because jobs moved them away. I am always amazed how blessed I've been by the people in my life. Anyhow, Clay and I had a great time and danced the night away!

The rest of the weekend was spent hitting the books. While it may seem a bit ironic one of the best decisions we've made was for Clay to attend school while I'm in school. Because we're both too busy to realize we don't have time for each other neither of us feel neglected. Our relationship has really been great during this semester. We have managed to make a lot of time for each other. However, our friends haven't recieved the attention they deserve. I guess something has to give. Anyhow, the weekend was spent with us both in the books since Clay has a test today and I've been trying to get my outlines caught up.

For all of you in blog reading land say a prayer for us that we can keep up this pace. It's been a crazy semester but we're half way through.