In Utah, a woman serves 18 months' probation for child endangerment after refusing to undergo a Caesarean section to save her twins, one of whom died.
This is ridiculous! Why should a woman have to have surgery that she doesn't want? A Caesarean section is major surgery with risk to both the Mother and the baby. Since it's the Mother's body shouldn't SHE be the one to decide if she wants to take the risk of a C-section or deliver naturally? And shouldn't she be free to make the decision without having to worry about being sent to jail for choosing not to have a C-section?
And this isn't an isolated incident.
Amber Marlowe anticipated an easy delivery when she went into labor on January 14, 2004. But after a routine ultrasound, doctors at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, in Pennsylvania, decided that the baby--at what looked like 13 pounds--was too big to deliver vaginally and told her that she needed to have a cesarean. The mom-to-be, however, wasn't convinced: After all, she'd given birth to her six previous kids the natural way, including other large babies. And monitoring showed that the fetus was in no apparent distress.
After she said no to surgery, doctors spent hours trying to change her mind. When that didn't work, the hospital went to court, seeking an order to become her unborn baby's legal guardian. A judge ruled that the doctors could perform a "medically necessary" c-section against the mom's will, if she returned to that hospital. Meanwhile, she and her husband checked out against the doctors' advice and went to another hospital, where she later gave birth vaginally to a healthy 11-pound girl. "When I found out about the court order, I couldn't believe the hospital would do something like that. It was scary and very shocking," says Marlowe. "All this just because I didn't want a c-section."
Yet hospitals in at least a dozen states have obtained court orders to compel unwilling women to undergo this major abdominal surgery. And while Marlowe was able to escape the scalpel, other patients were operated on-- despite their verbal or even physical resistance. In a tragic 1984 case, staff at a Chicago hospital forcibly tied a pregnant Nigerian woman who had declined a c-section to her hospital bed with leather wrist and ankle restraints. The woman objected to the surgery because she planned to return to Nigeria where the operation wasn't readily available, and she rightfully worried about health risks, including a ruptured uterus, if she became pregnant again and had another child vaginally back home. As she screamed for help and frantically tried to free herself, doctors, with a judge's permission, wheeled her off to the O.R. to perform the procedure.
Years ago, a Washington, D.C., hospital got a court order to perform a c-section on Angela Carder, who was gravely ill with cancer. Since the mom was in such poor health, the hospital's doctors believed that delivering the 26-week fetus immediately would give it a better chance of survival than waiting for a natural delivery. The result? Carder and her baby both died soon after the operation.
Why do pregnant have less rights then anyone else? You can't be legally compelled to undergo any other medical procedure for the benefit of another person. "You don't have to donate your kidney, your bone marrow, or your blood, even if someone else might die without it," explains Howard Minkoff, M.D., chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Maimonides Medical Center, in Brooklyn, New York, and coauthor (with Paltrow) on an analysis of the Rowland case published in the December 2004 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology. You also can't be prosecuted for murder if you refuse. "So why should c-sections be any different?" the doctor adds. "That's saying pregnant women have fewer rights than anyone else, including a fetus."
3 comments:
I don't know the research well enough on stem-cell research to comment. I'm pro-life at almost any cost, but we did a procedure beyond in-vitro. I was grateful that we didn't have anything worth freezing for later. I have very mixed feelings on that. If they're not going to be used, it seems like the next responsible thing would be to donate them for stem-cell research, but once again I don't know the medical or ethical arguments on this.
I have had 2 c-sections, one with twins, and I can't believe a woman would refuse the common surgery and end up losing a child. I wonder if she's proud she took a stand for her own rights now? It's such a simple surgery. I had a much better experience than my friends who went through natural child birth. I'm currently fighting insurance to take the c-section rider off my policy so that if we're so blessed as to have another child, I can have another c-section. Ironic that some of us are fighting for our rights to be given c-sections while others are fighting against it. It's a weird world.
With in-vitro, in case you ever need the info if you have something leftover you can donate it to a couple who will adopt it.
http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakeadoption.htm
But it does seem a no brainer to use it for research rather then just dump it in the trash.
I think the story about the C-section I reacted most strongly to was the Mother with Cancer whose own doctors said a C-section would kill her. But was forced to have one because of the baby's rights. I was lucky I delivered all my kids vaginally with no complications and I felt great the next day. Half-Sister-in-law (who is a nice person and shouldn't be confused with SIL) who had to have a C-section with her second had all sorts of problems and wound up in the hospital for 2 weeks. But if I had to choose between a C-section and my baby's health I would pick the C-section
I am toying with renaming the blog women's health issues.
What do you think?
How interesting! I've never heard about the adoption thing. Wow!
I think that new title would be more encompassing. Women would know they were going to read about a variety of issues.
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