A while back, I came across this interesting malpractice article about a woman seeking roughly $75,000 for the loss of her uterus. Yes, her uterus. This number made me pause and ponder: how do you put a price like that on a body part?
First, some background: Nebraska couple Jennifer and Jason De-Buhr decided to terminate her pregnancy late in the second trimester after learning through an MRI that the unborn child had “severe cerebral abnormalities and had a life expectancy of less than one year if he survived delivery.” The De-Buhrs allegedly sought medical care from Dr. Warren Hern of the Boulder (Colorado) Abortion Clinic in December 2013. Post-operation, the De-Buhrs claim Dr. Hern told them that all fetal tissue was removed from Mrs. DeBuhr’s body. In their minds, the surgery was successfully complete.
But according to a lawsuit filed against Dr. Hern by the De-Buhrs’ attorneys, Kory George and Laura Sova of Denver, Colorado, Mrs. De-Buhr started to experience spotty bleeding in 2014. The lawsuit claims a 4-centimeter bone, a fetal skull fragment, was still inside Mrs. De-Buhr, and that it was lodged in her uterus. Ultimately, Mrs. De-Buhr had to have her uterus removed from her body.
This is where the amount of the claim confuses me: a roughly $75,000 price tag on a uterus? How did they arrive at that number? If I’m making an uneducated guess, that sounds like a reasonable amount to cover the medical costs and expenses of the first surgery and at least part, if not all, of the cost of surgery to remove her uterus.
But $75,000 hardly seems enough to cover the severe pain and mental distress caused by the permanent removal of her uterus – arguably a large part of a woman’s body, which distinguishes her from her male counterpart. Mrs. De-Buhr also permanently lost her ability to conceive children, which I do not understand how you begin to calculate. Do the De-Buhrs have other children? Did they want to have additional children? If so, how many? Is there an exponential cost factor based on each child Mrs. De-Buhr will now be unable to conceive? How much do other medical malpractice cases award victims when a botched surgery causes permanent injury? What if a patient loses a vital internal organ in surgery, say, a kidney or liver – is there a running price list on organs?
Regardless of personal beliefs about abortion, what an interesting malpractice case as it affects damages rewarded to patients from pregnancy terminations, especially in our current political climate with abortion as a hot button topic.