Page 2716 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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to be raised to fever pitch in relation to lesbian and single women accessing the reproductive technologies which seem to be considered the rightful domain of heterosexual couples.
Let us consider other cases where women have sought reparation for damages, but on the basis that the medical intervention that they are protesting thwarted their ability to reproduce. I do not think that Mrs Dunne wants to stop people claiming these kinds of damages. For instance, more than 300,000 lawsuits were filed against the A H Robins company, the largest tort liability case since asbestos. The federal judge, Miles Lord, who was seen as an activist, made history with the judgements, personal liability findings and public rebukes of company heads. The cost of litigation and settlements, estimated at billions of dollars, led the company to file for bankruptcy protection in 1985. As a result, the stock value of the company quadrupled, and Robins was able to sell the company for a hefty profit to American Home Products.
What we will note is the average award to claimants in the class action was $725, while the average claimant personally represented by a lawyer got $21,000. The largest single payment was more than $2.2 million to the family of a severely disabled girl who was conceived while her mother was using a Dalkon Shield. For the first time, as a result of these actions, in 1976 the US Food and Drug Administration organisation began to require testing and approval of medical devices, including IUDs. Now this action was long and hard fought and I do not think any amount of money could ever compensate these women for the pain and suffering caused in large part by the enthusiastic and glowing endorsements given by thousands of well-meaning doctors about the Dalkon Shield. It had seemed a major advance and it was much hyped by the manufacturers, but it went horribly wrong.
There have been many women I am sure who have had outcomes not anticipated when they put themselves in the path of assisted reproduction. An enormous amount of trust, and money, is involved. Few of them have gone to the courts to claim damages, I prefer the word “support” over “damages”, because the litigation process is expensive and it requires a huge amount of courage. It is likely that the case will be highly publicised, and, of course, this publicity could cause psychological damage to the child in later life, as it is claimed, but this is very much in the hands of the family and society.
Litigation will be costly and there is no certainty of success. But I believe it is a process that must be available until society takes it upon itself to support every child adequately, making claims such as this necessary only when the issue is other than economic. It is a process which, if available to some, should be available to all, regardless of the economic circumstances. Mr Speaker, reproduction has another meaning; after the biological reproduction, there is that other process in the sense of performing the tasks of everyday existence, keeping the child alive, preparing food, cleaning its clothes, buying its clothes; all these tasks that maintain the future workers and members of communities. This domestic labour has historically been the responsibility of women, and while the act of biological reproduction is circumscribed by time, social and economic reproduction is not. It is expensive in time, in energy and in money.
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