Age Quod Agis You have shown yourself ignorant on the details of the case you have so grandly expounded upon, why don’t you visit the thread and read at least one news article before you make more of a fool of yourself. I’m not telling you just how you revealed yourself, you did. Go, read, find out, then go post on the topic and quite extemporizing.
Here’s a question for those of you who think it is right that the mother should be charged with murder.
If both children had happened to have survived despite her poor decision, should she have been charged with attempted murder?
Why/why not?
Do you think that she *would['i] have been charged with attempted murder if this had actually happened?
That is non invasive and easy to distinguish from a C-section. I’m sure you can come up with something closer to the grey area to make your point though. No I don’t think being forced to take an aspirin is too great a burden. I do think that being forced to have an operation is too much. I’m sure that somewhere in the middle is a curly grey area.
I didn’t really think of it as sanctimonious BS, just an honest reflection of my feelings on the matter.
If anyone is disheartened by my “apparent inability to see the other side” then they are barking up the wrong tree. I see the other side all too clearly. I think that what that mother did (or didn’t do) is beyond belief and I have absolutely no problem with anyone saying the harshest things about her. I just don’t like the implications of charging her with murder.
I’m going to pull this thread down from the rarified air of constitutionality to the smog of reality.
In reality, people who otherwise appear to be sensible and intelligent can and will refuse to seek medical help if they fear they will be forced to undergo medical treatment. I know because I’ve done so. Not for pregnancy, but for clinical depression. Last winter, when I was clinically depressed to the point of being suicidal, I did not call my therapist because I was afraid she would require that I be hospitalized. Since I was laid off, I thought being hospitalized would interfere with my ability to find a job, along with a host of more nebulous, less rational fears. It turns out my fear of involuntary hospitalization was not based in fact, but I didn’t believe that at the time.
People make mad decisions. People also make decisions which look bad at the time, but prove to be the best possible under the circumstances, even if the circumstances sometimes mean there are no good ones, only varying degrees of bad. I’ve got a strong streak of libertarian in me, and I don’t want the government dictating what I can or cannot do with regards to my own health, be it physical or mental.
CJ
Utter bullshit.
Not just legally but ethically and morally.
You’re acting like a child, treis. Give it up. Not only do you not have anything to back up your opinion, your opinion happens to be discriminatory, oppressive and best befitting a neanderthal. Or Rick Santorum. Take your choice.
Now, as to the derivation of rights:
The right to self-autonomy is grounded in common law, not written specifically into statute. The U.S. Constitution does not speak directly to any person’s right to have medical treatment, right to choose medical treatment or right to refuse medical treatment. (Though some local-level jurisdictions have created a statutory right to refuse treatment.) On the federal level, those rights come only from inferences from major court cases. However, those inferences are strong and have been applied broadly by the courts when called into question.
The right to choose certain medical treatments is most obviously and clearly engendered in the decision of Roe v. Wade. From Roe, courts have routinely held that there is a right of privacy which limits the ability of third parties – including legislators – to interfere with an individual’s ability to make their own medical decisions and act upon them. The rights of third parties to make medical decisions for others was further limited by the decision in Cruzan v. Director, in which it was made clear that when incapacitated, a third party may not refuse treatment on your behalf.
That said, courts have held that when the state has a compelling conflicting interest, a person may be ordered to relinquish their autonomy with regard to medical decisions. However, the same decision which ruled thusly suggested that such situations would very likely be “extremely rare and truly exceptional.” One of those compelling reasons would, of course, be a negative impact on another person, and of course, there is no more negative an impact than death.
The only problem is that there are massive conflicts as to the “personhood” of an unborn child. In the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court said that an unborn child was not a person inasmuch as legal rights do not attach. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, passed by Congress in 2003 runs rather counter to that idea, as it gives legal protection to all fetuses regardless of gestational age. (This law is, of course, currently under legal challenge.) Some states have laws such as Utah’s, under which mothers can be prosecuted for using drugs or alcohol during their pregnancies, if such usage results in fetal death. Some states limit those laws to acts which take place after the fetus is viable, others do not.
Some courts have acted beyond the scope of such laws to place restrictions on pregnant women not for the wellbeing of the women but the fetuses they’ve carried – Amber Marlowe in Pennsylvania is the most recent case. In the fall of 2000, Rebecca Corneau was ordered to be held against her will in a secure hospital facility in Massachusetts unti she gave birth to a child whose custody she had already lost.
There are some things which are unquestionable:
[ul][li]There is no set standard across the country as to what legal rights can be applied to a fetus which can then be said to supercede the rights of the mother carrying it.[/li][li]Many if not most of the efforts to grant personhood, legal protection or program eligibility to unborn children are not based upon medical fact nor for the wellbeing of the mothers who are carrying those children. Instead, they being made by conservative politicians who disagree with Roe v. Wade and are attempting to chip away at that decision.[/li][li]Medicine is not an exact science, and for every five doctors who would advise one course of action, there are another five to advisesomething entirely different. Relying upon the beliefs of one doctor or group of medical colleagues to restrict the rights of any person to the extent of the Utah case (or Amber Marlowe’s) is fraught with peril, at best.[/ul][/li]
As such, until the issue of fetal personhood is settled once and for all, and without extraordinarily conclusive medical evidence, it can only be seen as an extreme infringement upon the rights of any woman to force her to undergo a major, dangerous surgical procedure or to have her movements severely restricted when such is happening in order to “protect” an entity whose status, even under law, is questionable. There are bound to be extreme controversies attending any such decisions until SCOTUS either affirms or overturns the UVVA.
Darnit, I didn’t realize that a second page snuck in while I was writing my treatise.
No, we’re not talking about a de minimus invasion, nor are we talking about “mom enduring a scar.” We’re talking about a woman enduring a serious abdominal surgery with all of the usual surgical risks – life-threatening blood loss, anesthesia complications, life-threatening infections – and a list of additional possible gynecological complications the length of my arm (some of which can destroy future fertility) plus, a six to ten week recovery period during which time she also has to care for a newborn, even though it’s usually a couple of weeks before she can even manage to go up and down a flight of stairs without pain. The scar is almost an afterthought except for the fact that c-section scars in and of themselves can negatively affect future health and fertility. Despite the (excessive) frequency with which the surgery is performed, it is still an extremely dangerous and risky undertaking which cannot be entered into lightly or dismissed as having no possible repercussions more significant than a scar.
And for the severity of the surgery, there is no guarantee that the baby’s life will be saved. There was absolutely no guarantee for Melissa Rowland’s son or daughter. You would have this woman jailed on murder charges because she decided that she didn’t wish to risk her health and the health of her children on a crap shoot.
It’s a moot question, because it’s statutorily impossible. Failure to follow medical advice with no bad outcome? Where’s the harm? What could be proven?
Give me a bloody break, so if a mother takes her sick (born) child to the doctor and the doctor says: “give your child X medicine or he/she will die” Then the mother dismisses the “opinion” and the child eventually dies, you´re saying that the mother didn´t have any responsibility on the child´s death?
Wow.
This has got to make it tougher to get laid.
I’m so in shock I can’t even come up with a good smartass retort to this.
Holy shit.
In my attempt at a joke I vastly oversimplified the argument. I don’t believe that a woman gives up all her rights when she has sex. In this case I don’t feel she has the right to refuse the proceedure on the sole reasoning that she doesn’t want a scar. Obviously there are plenty of good reasons to refuse a C-section becuase it is a major surgery and I fully support the rights of mothers to refuse. But the refusual has to be based on sound logic and in my opinion the fear of a scar is not a valid reason.
In this specific case I don’t believe charges should be filed against the mother. While her reasoning for refusing the proceedure was morally vile and repugnaunt it is nearly impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was her sole reason.
I am not sure of what value to place on an unborn fetus but I do feel that it does have inherent value. I realize that there are different stages of a fetus and the rights of the fetus vs the rights of the mother change as the fetus developes. I believe that once the fetus reaches viability outside the womb it requires some protection under the law. Exactly what protection it requires and how we should enforce it is an extremely tricky and trecherous legal question that is loaded with emotion. I can’t say that I am qualified to come up with specific laws but I think the mother has an expectation to reasonably care for her unborn child.
:rolleyes: who exactly am I opressing and discriminating against?
Why are you picking on the Neanderthals? H. sapiens, a species whose behaviour we are familiar with, already subscribes to said opinion.
No, and no. But I don’t actually think that she should be charged with murder here. I do think she should be charged with something, but I don’t think she acted with malice and premeditation, or with the specific intent to harm her children, so I don’t think the elements fit with murder. I just think she’s probably a terrible, loathsome person that deserves whatever she gets.
You’re absolutely right. There are certainly more foggy areas lying in between an aspirin and surgery, and we could spend all day trying to tease out where that boundary lies. I was just trying to figure out whether you were absolutely against any infringement on the mother’s rights, or just the infringement in this case.
Thanks for your direct and honest answer.
I agree that a C-Section involves other risks that are inherent in any surgery, and involves pain and recuperation time. But according to the linked articles, we’re not talking about a woman that refused the C-Section because of the pain, or because of the slight risk of death, or because of the long recuperation time. We’re talking about a woman that refused the C-Section because of the risk that she’d get a scar, and that scar would “ruin her life.”
And her motives are highly relevant. If she didn’t have the surgery because she was scared that she’d die, or that it was against her religious or moral convictions, I would probably bitch, but I wouldn’t support criminal charges against her and I’d be shocked if the state brought such charges. But the fact is that she decided that she’d rather have a belly with no scars than save the life of her child, and I think that’s inexcusable.
You’re right. There are no guarantees either way. And there’s also no guarantee that aliens wouldn’t beam her up to the mothership, where they’d extract the children from her womb without surgery and restore life to the bodies.
More realistically, if she’d had the surgery, the probabilities strongly indicated that she’d be fine, and that she could save her kids. On the other hand, if she didn’t have the surgery, the probabilities strongly indicated that one or both of her children would die.
Nothing is ever guaranteed, but that doesn’t mean we have to turn into J. Alfred Prufrock.
It’s not statutorily impossible. You don’t need to actually cause harm to be guilty of attempting to cause harm.
Well, that’s not too far removed from my view point. I don’t think she should be charged with murder. I do think she’s a terrible, loathsome person (in lieu of unreported mitigating circumstances coming to light). I think she deserves something, but I’m not sure what. Maybe some serious help.
If she had been charged with manslaughter I’d probably still disagree with it but I’d find it a lot harder to justify my position.
I’m not sure that it is a moo point. In your normal attempted murder trial there may well be no harm done to the victim (shot fired but missed for example). As I understand it, murder requires the intent to kill and the actual killing. With attempted murder you only need to show intent and that an attempt was made. Surely if the babies had survived then she should have been charged with attempted murder. Come to think of it, why isn’t she being charged with attempted murder of the baby that did survive?
Just thinking about this some more. I can see how drinking alcohol should/could be illegal for a mother. I’m not so sure about neglecting to take some kind of medication such as aspirin.
It essentially comes down to the difference (if any) between acts and omissions. I am happy for acts to be legislated against, I’m undecided about legislating against omissions, particularly in the case of medical issues such as this one.
Age Quod Agis Serious question for you here. What part of “I don’t want to be cut like that.” implies a fear of a scar to you? To me, it implies a fear of cutting otherwise known as surgery. Not even in the second hand quote from the nurse in the linked articles is the word “scar” attributed to her. So, rethink your opinion on the woman’s motives a bit, eh? (Yes, I think she’s reprehensible, and made a wrong choice. I do pity her though.)
Ale Of course not, but then the MOTHER does not have to go through surgery on HER body to treat the problem, does she? That is the point that seperates the two instances, as you well know. I will point out however, that parents still refuse one doctor’s “diagnosis/advice” in order to consult another physician for treatment options. Also, parents can have legal DNR forms, that they fill out on behalf of their critically ill children.
It’s a debate that does indeed have many grey areas. However, I DO NOT like any hint that one genders bodily automony will be/is being compromised. Unfortunately, it appears to be in the process of being done. This is what has got me up in arms, and also the fact that there are people out there willing to cede that right over to the Government for me, or so their stated opinions imply.
If the above is really true, I’d be inclined to believe that the woman in question is mentally ill. Most women wouldn’t want to have a scar on their bellies, but being that afraid of getting one while apparently unbothered by any of the real medical risks? That’s crazy. I don’t think we can condemn this woman for making a questionable choice if she’s not right in the head.
Lamia The person you quoted in your post is taking a comment made by the DA combined with a misunderstanding of a second hand quote made by the defendent as gospel truth. She never mentioned fear of a scar, she said she didn’t want to be cut, if you believe the second hand quote from the nurse at the 3rd hospistal she visited. Also, consider this. The DA may be putting a “bad spin” on the defendent’s character in order to win, he’s trying her by making damning insinuations in the media, but offering no proof to back them up.
Your “attempt at a joke” was one of the most unmitigatedly ignorant and downright stupid comments I’ve ever seen made on this board. To believe that a woman gives up any rights by simply having sex is almost as stupid.
Your comment was definitely discriminatory against women, for starters. Any particular reason men aren’t included in it, or do they get off scott-free in the treis Bill of Rights? :rolleyes:
I don’t know maybe becuase nobody has mentioned men in this thread? And no they don’t get off scot free. Along with the mother they have a responsibility to raise the child until it can provide for itself.
I believe that life begins at conception and it should be protected. So yes in my opinion a women gives up her right to drink heavily, use drugs and do other things that directly damage the baby.
Yeah, but you’d have her rights ended as soon as a feller slipped her the high hard one.
There are plenty of people who believe life begins at conception–it doesn’t naturally follow that any sexually active woman automatically loses key rights.