TORONTO - A physician owes a duty of care to a female patient and not to a child she may conceive in the future, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday as it dismissed a lawsuit against an Ontario doctor filed on behalf of a child born with disabilities. Recognizing a duty of care by a doctor to a future child of a patient would affect the doctor's existing legal obligation, which is to the patient, a three-judge panel ruled in a unanimous decision. "Imposing a duty of care on a doctor to a patient's future child in addition to the existing duty to the female patient creates a conflict of duties that could prompt doctors to offer treatment to some female patients in a way that might deprive them of their autonomy and freedom of informed choice in their medical care," Justice Kathryn Feldman wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel.