Canesi Ex Rel. Canesi v. Wilson

The majority holds that a physician who fails to warn a pregnant woman of a potential adverse effect of a prescribed drug virtually insures that her child will be born without birth defects from any cause. I respectfully dissent.

Under the majority opinion, the parents of a child born with congenital defects may maintain a wrongful birth action against physicians who failed to warn the mother of the potential adverse effects of a drug that did not cause the defects. The import of the holding is that the parents need not prove that the drug was the proximate cause of the birth defects that give…