Parents sue hospital for 'wrongful pregnancy'

A hospital forgot to perform a sterilization procedure so the family wants them to pay for raising the resulting child.

An Ontario couple in 2011 decided that three children was just the right number and requested the mother’s tubes be tied following the birth of their twins at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, reports CTV News.

Jim and Jen (they requested their names not be used) were surprised a few months later when Jen became pregnant with their fourth child.

After some research, the couple learned that Jen’s tubal ligation procedure never happened due to an oversight by the hospital staff, reports CTV News.

Medical professionals are often held financially responsible for botched procedures that result in injury or disability but not when the outcome is an extra child.

The couple is suing their doctors and hospital for $800,000 to assist in the cost of raising their daughter born in February 2013, reports CTV News.

“Not that we don’t love her, not that we’re not happy, not that she’s not an important part of our family. She is everything and more, but it still doesn’t mitigate the fact that there are pragmatic costs to raising a child,” the mother told CTV News.

“If a man got a woman pregnant, he would have to pay child support, right? So, isn’t this kind of the same thing?” Jim told CTV News.

Read more about the case at CTV News.