|
When Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, is born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), they are devastated - she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow's medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the financial payout might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she'd known about the disability in advance - words that her husband can't abide, that Willow will hear and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she is suing isn't just her physician - it's her best friend.Handle with Careexplores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a foetus that will be disabled, at which point should an obstetrician counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is too disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love?'Picoult is a best-seller for good reason - tight plots and a style that reads easily, but is never glib.' - Marie Clarie, UK'Picoult has a remarkable ability to make us share her characters' feelings.' - People'It's hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes.' - Financial Times
|