Broken Frienships, Broken Daughter

I recently read a novel called Handle with Care, by Jodi Picoult.  This book centered around a family who had a daughter with a rare bone disease; this disease would cause her bones to break and splinter at even the slightest touch.  Also highly mentioned throughout this novel is the family's mutual friends: the doctor who delivered the diseased and breakable child... As the years wore on, the daughter became more and more fragile, unable to enjoy any frivolities of childhood because she was in and out of the hospital every week.  Eventually, the doctor bills became too much to handle, and the mother started to question her ability to handle her daughter's horrific breaks.

Then, the money problems became too real; everyone was hungry and tired.  Now the mother must go to a lawyer to figure out what to do. It is suggested that she sue the doctor who delivered her diseased child, the doctor who is her best friend, because this disease should have been apparent on the ultrasound, which would have given the family a choice whether to abort or not... what ends up happening is that she does sue her friend, she wins enough money to pay for unlimited medical treatments, and she destroys her friendship and her marriage.

Now the question is: Did she do the right thing?  Is selling out your best friend, suing your best friend the way to handle a situation like this one?  Could you, hypothetically, claim that you would have aborted your diseased child in a court of law in front of jury members in order to get the money you thought you deserved?  And, how much can a friendship sustain before the hurt is too real and too personal?

Crazy is as crazy does...

I have begun to notice that Shakespeare sure does like to turn a lot of his characters into hysterical members of society who eventually incite their own downfall.  However, I wonder if Shakespeare is trying to prove a point, or merely adding depth to his plays.  Perhaps his characters go crazy to portray an idea that all bad actions are derived from mental madness ( people only do bad things when they are too out of their mind to understand it ).  Or maybe Shakespeare is showing that madness will always consume those individuals embarking on an evil and immoral task as some sort of punishment... in the case of Macbeth, I think the madness was caused by guilt as a punishment, but in Hamlet, I'm not so sure why he is going all crazy all of the sudden.  I presume that his mental state is going awry in preparation to commit the murder of his uncle-father.

What do you think is the hidden meaning behind the madness that consumes so many of Shakespeare's characters?  Is there a meaning? Or is it simply another plot line to amuse the audience?