The wrongfulness or rightfulness of actions for wrongful life

Courts in Australia and the United Kingdom have emphatically rejected claims for "wrongful life", that is to say actions brought by disabled children conceived or born after negligence on the part of a medical practitioner. This article analyses the judicial decisions and reveals that the reasoning of the courts is much less clear than it would at first appear. The judgments are inconsistent and demonstrate how extensive in practice are the consequences of the divergence between the High Court of Australia and the House of Lords over the applicability of the Caparo test for the existence of a duty of care.