Court Opinion

ID: 9646117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:49:30.774671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:34.391090
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
concurring.
The principal opinion declines to recognize causes of action for wrongful life and wrongful birth in this state. I concur completely. The principal opinion’s conclusion that Section 188.130, RSMo 1986, is not applicable is entirely correct. Yet even *747were we faced with legislative silence on this issue and even if the principal opinion’s causation discussion on the wrongful birth issue were not so irrefutable and the impossibility of determining damages in wrongful life cases so obvious, I would not vote to recognize either cause of action.
Courts are ill-equipped to render the policy decisions which the adoption of these causes of action require. Courts unquestionably possess the authority under the common law to recognize new causes of action. That some courts have stepped into the void and allowed such actions is no reason for this Court to follow. Authority is but the threshold consideration. The more critical question is this: Should judges decide this issue? I adhere to the view that choices which dramatically alter the landscape of societal relationships are best made in the crucible of the free-ranging debate and broad fact-gathering capacity in which representative assemblies regularly indulge. Unlike judges, members of legislatures are directly accountable to an attentive electorate. The people are the ultimate arbiters of societal policy; their elected representatives should make such momentous choices, not judges.
The principal opinion cites the impossibility of assessing damages in wrongful life actions. Speculation in this arena, however, is not limited to the question of damages. Wrongful life actions ask juries to tread where mortals cannot go, to weigh the cost of life — even handicapped life— against the benefit of no life at all. Theologians, philosophers, theologoumenants and yes, even judges, sink quickly and irretrievably into a quagmire when they stray into questions such as these. The difficulties are endless, the conundra profound.
Today we wisely choose to leave the future of these issues in legislative hands.
I concur in the principal opinion.