The birth of a healthy child due to negligent failure of "Pill": Benefit or loss?

Abstract

THE inevitable has occurred. A physician prescribed an oral contraceptive. The pharmacist made a mistake. He filled the prescription with a tranquilizer. The patient, mother of seven children, took the "pill" faithfully, continued to have intercourse with her husband, became pregnant, and was delivered of a fine, healthy, unwanted eighth child.The husband and wife brought an action against the pharmacist, not against the physician, for money damages alleging four separate bases of recovery: the economic cost of rearing an eighth child; the pain and anxiety of the pregnancy and childbirth; medical and hospital expenses; and the wife's loss of . . .