IVF mix-up: Clinic to pay damages, but not for upkeep

SINGAPORE — Thomson Medical and Thomson Fertility Centre will pay damages for the botched fertilisation procedure that led to the birth of “Baby P” — who was born in 2010 after her mother’s egg was wrongly fertilised with a stranger’s sperm instead of the woman’s husband’s — but not for her upkeep.

There are “cogent policy considerations” against finding liability for upkeep in cases such as Baby P’s, as well as wrongful or unwanted birth cases such as from sterilisation procedures improperly performed, High Court judge Choo Han Teck said yesterday in his ruling.

Laws may be needed on whether to allow upkeep claims for wrongful birth cases, as this is a contentious issue, he said without expressing definite views on the matter. The judge did not consider Baby P to be a wrongful birth as her mother had wanted to have a baby.

A High Court assistant registrar had previously disallowed the woman’s upkeep claim for Baby P and she had appealed. But Thomson Medical and other defendants, including two embryologists, agreed last year to pay damages for pain and suffering caused.

Both sides wanted to settle the issue on the upkeep claim before progressing to the assessment of damages.

In denying the upkeep claim, such as for schooling, medical fees, clothes and food until the child is financially self-reliant, the judge said the baby should not grow up thinking her existence was a mistake. The mother cannot be a parent and have someone else pay to bring up her child, he said.