When things go badly wrong in the perinatal period there has developed a culture in many “advanced societies” that demands a search for someone to blame. This search for guilt, accountability, punishment, and recompense often results in litigation.

In this thought provoking book John D Lantos describes such lawsuits as “our public morality plays” and uses his experience as a neonatologist, expert witness, and ethicist to create, debate, …