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Martin T. Donohoe
UCLA School of Medicine Class of 1990 Los Angeles

JAMA. 1988;260(1):31.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In a recent article published in THE JOURNAL, Nelson and Milliken¹ state that the California Appellate Court case People v Smith² "decided that a child after birth has a right to recover damages for injuries wrongfully inflicted by a third party prior to birth." Would or should the child have a right to recover damages from the mother's unwillingness to fulfill her "ethical obligation to accept reasonable, nonexperimental medical treatment for the sake of her fetus and to behave otherwise in a manner intended to benefit and not harm her fetus"? Would or should these damages resulting from thirdparty or maternally inflicted injuries include lifelong costs for physical damage resulting directly and secondarily from the above situations, damages for emotional suffering, and costs for necessary psychiatric care? If the mother or the third party is not liable for any of these costs or cannot pay, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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