# Mom faces jail for murder for not having Caesarean (leading to baby death)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 12, 2004, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869 "2004-03-12T07:23:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/1 "2004-03-12T07:23:48Z")
[This CNN article](http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/03/11/mother.charged.ap/index.html) has all the facts. Basically, a mother in Utah refused a Caesarean repeatedly, warned each time that refusing had a good chance of leading to the death of one or more of the babies. Doctors got the strong impression from her refusals that her reasons were “purely cosmetic”; she simply did not want the scars.
Well, one of the babies died, and Utah law provides that unborn children at any time are covered by murder statutes (making exceptions for abortion). It’s been used in the past to cover cases of drug or alcohol abuse by pregnant women; this is apparently its first use in such a case.
What do you all think of this case? Of the laws being used to cover it? Will it have any effect on the abortion debate? What do you think would happen if a Christian Scientist in Utah did something similar?
---
### Author:  [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/2 "2004-03-12T14:43:41Z")
Being a hard-core pro-choicer, it is my position that the woman has full discretion over her own body during all phases of pregnancy. Quite simply, she does not have to justify her decision not to have a C-section to anyone. Her reasons are her own business. She said no, end of story.
I disagree with the characterization of Utahs law in your OP (I haven’t read the law in question, so all I know of it is the OP). The state can no more mandate that a woman may not drink during pregnancy than it can mandate she may not have an abortion.
Note that I am not attempting to debate the morality of such choices. I’m simply saying they are hers to make.
---
### Author:  [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/3 "2004-03-12T15:06:08Z")
I don’t see how you can charge her with murder for simply not doing something. I don’t see how it could possibly be any worse than a person who stands by and allows someone to die. Unless there’s something like a fiduciary responsibility for someone in your care or something like that. But even then, is there a murder charge? Perhaps a lawyer can chime in.
---
### Author:  [@spanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spanna)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/4 "2004-03-12T15:08:42Z")
Tottaly agree with Beelzebubba.It is unfortunate that a child died, and the mother has to live with that, But nobody has the right to demand that she undergo surgery against her wishes.
Can anybody guarantee 100% that she would have survived the C-Section ?
[http://www.motherfriendly.org/news/Sep2003/c-sec-maternal-death.pdf](http://www.motherfriendly.org/news/Sep2003/c-sec-maternal-death.pdf)
---
### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/5 "2004-03-12T15:13:56Z")
If the doctors were that concerned they should have tried to obtain a court order compelling her to have a C-section. Did they go down that road? Is there any legal or medical precedent in that state where a woman was compelled to undergo C-section, or where the courts ruled that she could not be compelled to do so?
It was a bad choice, but hers to make. The fact that it was based on cosmetic appearance is irrelevant. If she is competant, her reasoning isn’t pertinent, she is able to make a decision, and that decision should be respected.
Since this is actually legal rather than medical, Utah should decide whether it is acceptable to override the autonomy of a competant adult wrt C-section.
I don’t think it is, but Utah should make a law that applies universally to all women in this situation, either you can make a choice if you are competent, or you can’t, not one thing for one woman, and one thing for another.
---
### Author:  [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/6 "2004-03-12T15:45:57Z")
Is the next step down this path jail time for not voluntarily donating an organ?
---
### Author:  [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/7 "2004-03-12T15:51:45Z")
The text of the law in question:
> [@](#):
>
> ```
> 76-5-201. Criminal homicide -- Elements -- Designations of offenses.
> (1) (a) A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, with criminal negligence, or acting with a mental state otherwise specified in the statute defining the offense, causes the death of another human being, including an unborn child at any stage of its development.
> (b) There shall be no cause of action for criminal homicide for the death of an unborn child caused by an abortion.
> (2) Criminal homicide is aggravated murder, murder, manslaughter, child abuse homicide, homicide by assault, negligent homicide, or automobile homicide.
>
> ```
I’m still chewing…
---
### Author:  [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/8 "2004-03-12T16:38:11Z")
I had gestational diabetes. I was overweight going into the pregnancy. Now, some doctors advise in this circumstance that the pregnant woman control her blood sugar by eating a very low carb diet, and some prescribe a diet with as few as 1700 calories a day for a woman of my weight. Mine did not, he advised me to get an endocrinologist and a dietitian. I was put on insulin and a 2600 calorie diet. I gained weight as I should and no more, controlled my blood sugar, and gave birth to a normal sized healthy girl.
Uncontrolled gestational diabetes often leads to large unhealthy babies and/or stillbirth. If I had a doctor that had advised a low carb/low calorie diet and decided he was full of crap, if the outcome was bad then under the reasoning in this case, I should in that circumstance be charged with murder or attempted murder. Mind you, eating only 1700 calories when pregnant can lead to unhealthy infants as well as unhealthy mothers, and still fail to adequately control diabetes. Insulin courses like I was on were not commonly prescribed for GD a few years ago, and many doctors believed that pregnant women who reported high fasting blood sugars were cheating or misreporting their diet. Not so many years before that GD was not a recognized condition.
How much do we want to second guess medical descisions that competent adults make? There are procedures to force people to submit to treatment if they are not competent.
Medical advice changes over time, both with fads and with science. If we start jailing people who don’t follow doctors orders, we may well be jailing them for doing exactly what the doctor would have prescribed a few years ago, or a few years in the future.
---
### Author:  [@honkyhonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/honkyhonky)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/9 "2004-03-12T16:50:25Z")
Imho, this is a tragedy. Any other patient would have the right to refuse surgeory, even at the risk of harming one’s self. Charging a woman for murder in this circumstance is rediculous and should get overturned, or else this is going to open up a whole nasty can of worms!
---
### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/10 "2004-03-12T17:29:56Z")
> [@Beelzebubba](#):
>
> Being a hard-core pro-choicer, it is my position that the woman has full discretion over her own body during all phases of pregnancy.
>
> The state can no more mandate that a woman may not drink during pregnancy than it can mandate she may not have an abortion.
What would you think of a pregnant woman who chose to have surgery to have her fetus’s arms cut off while otherwise allowing it to develop normally? What if there were a drug she could take that would cause her baby to be born deaf, or blind? To be consistent, you’d have to legally allow such things (even if you’d object to them on a moral or practical level).
> [@IzzyR](#):
>
> I don’t see how you can charge her with murder for simply not doing something. I don’t see how it could possibly be any worse than a person who stands by and allows someone to die.
It reminds me of cases where parents have, for religious reasons, let their children die rather than give them medical treatment (like medicine or blood transfusions) that would have saved their lives. I’d put what this woman did somewhere in the gray area between this, and having a late-term abortion.
---
### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/11 "2004-03-12T18:18:05Z")
Thudlow, we DO legally allow women to take teratogenic drugs while continuing pregnancies, if taking those drugs is in their best interest.
And no surgeon is going to cut off a healthy foetus’ arms.
Can you think of better examples?
---
### Author:  [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/12 "2004-03-12T20:01:31Z")
> [@irishgirl](#):
>
> If the doctors were that concerned they should have tried to obtain a court order compelling her to have a C-section. Did they go down that road? Is there any legal or medical precedent in that state where a woman was compelled to undergo C-section, or where the courts ruled that she could not be compelled to do so?
The below is taken from an AP news story January 17, 2004, Saturday, BC cycle. I can’t find it online and I have pulled sections of it from the Lexis Nexis news service.
> [@](#):
>
> Amber Marlowe went into labor on Tuesday and the couple, who live in Plymouth, first went to Mercy Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, where officials advised a C-section for the safety of the mother and child. The couple refused and went to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, where Drs. Lynne Coslett and Stephen Zeger on Tuesday and Wednesday repeatedly told the Marlowes a C-section was necessary.
>
> John Marlowe said hospital staff held his wife at the hospital for 13 hours, telling her “horror stories” in trying to change her mind.
>
> The Marlowes again refused and the hospital sought a court order to take guardianship of the baby, citing “imminent threat of irreparable harm” to the fetus. The couple left that hospital and went to Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton, where doctors agreed to a vaginal delivery, and the baby girl was born Thursday.
>
> John Marlowe said his wife wanted a vaginal delivery because that’s how she delivered her six other children, including some who were larger than the couple’s newborn, and because a friend of hers died from a C-section.
>
> “It’s up to the mother,” John Marlowe told the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre for a story published Friday. He added that he and his wife have no religious beliefs that made them refuse surgery, and that the hospital’s contention was untrue that ultrasound showed the baby weighing 13 pounds.
>
> The test showed that the baby weighed a little more than 11 pounds, he said. The couple, who have been married for more than nine years, declined to divulge the newborn’s exact weight but said she weighed less than 13 pounds. They also would not give their ages.
The amazing thing? The court granted the order. From the same article.
> [@](#):
>
> Luzerne County Common Pleas Judge Michael Conahan’s order gave the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital permission to force her to deliver her baby by Caesarean section if she returned to that hospital. The hospital claimed Marlowe was citing religious reasons for refusing the surgery.
>
> Her husband, John Marlowe, said that his wife and their baby girl - the couple’s seventh child - are healthy. He also said that the his wife did not refuse the Caesarean for religious reasons and that hospital officials were “arrogant” in trying to force her to have the surgery.
>
> According to the hospital’s lawsuit, doctors said that Marlowe had complications during other deliveries and her baby was expected to weigh 13 pounds - factors that they feared could result in the death of the baby if she were to go through a natural delivery.
>
> Wilkes-Barre General was seeking guardianship to “preserve and protect the rights of (the fetus) regarding its health and survival,” hospital attorney Mary G. Cummings wrote in court documents.
Enjoy,
Steven
---
### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/13 "2004-03-12T20:01:57Z")
As a mathematician, whenever I see an absolute statement, my instinct is to look for a counterexample. And the extreme (bizarre, “pathological”) cases tend to be good sources of counterexamples. Once we’ve determined that the original absolute statement isn’t always true, we can go about figuring out under what conditions it is and is not true.
I stand by my rejection of a pregnant woman’s _absolute_ right to do whatever she wants regarding her body and the fetus therein. As for _where_ the line should be drawn legally (as well as morally, which is a whole other question), that’s a toughie.
---
### Author:  [@Pencil\_Pusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pencil_Pusher)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/14 "2004-03-12T22:30:59Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#):
>
> What would you think of a pregnant woman who chose to have surgery to have her fetus’s arms cut off while otherwise allowing it to develop normally? What if there were a drug she could take that would cause her baby to be born deaf, or blind? To be consistent, you’d have to legally allow such things (even if you’d object to them on a moral or practical level).
not only is it a bad example, as **irishgirl** already pointed out, but it is a straw man. Declining to put yourself in danger or even declining to be inconvenienced for the sake of another is not “consistent” with intentionally harming another for no reason.
Now, if your hypothetical were cutting the fetus’s arms off so that the delivery would be easier, then that would be a bit closer to the mark. Then we could all debate over whether there is a distinction between acts and omissions, whether any doctor would ever perform such a procedure, whether the government would be correct in outlawing such a procedure, whether the child would have an civil action against his mother when he reaches an age of majority, etc. However, that wasn’t your question.
---
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/15 "2004-03-13T00:54:25Z")
**mtgman** am I missing something? This thread has been talking about the case of Melissa Ann Rowland of Utah. Your links refer to Amber Marlowe, whom I assume hails from Pennsylvania.
Is their some relevance to your links? Are they just posted as a general reference to a similar case?
---
### Author:  [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/16 "2004-03-13T01:14:32Z")
Just something somewhat similar. **irishgirl** was asking if there was precedent for compelling c-sections or precedent the other way. I didn’t know of any in Utah, but I did know of the Pennsylvania case and figured I’d share what I knew.
Enjoy,
Steven
---
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/17 "2004-03-13T01:36:29Z")
Thanks mtgman. Worth clarifying. I wasn’t paying attention and just assumed the article was about the same case. It wasn’t until I got to ‘seventh child’ that the penny dropped.
---
### Author:  [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/18 "2004-03-13T02:18:34Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#):
>
> What would you think of a pregnant woman who chose to have surgery to have her fetus’s arms cut off while otherwise allowing it to develop normally? What if there were a drug she could take that would cause her baby to be born deaf, or blind? **To be consistent** , you’d have to legally allow such things (even if you’d object to them on a moral or practical level).
(empasis added.)
> [@Thudlow Boink](#):
>
> As a mathematician, whenever I see an absolute statement, my instinct is to look for a counterexample.
It’s funny you should say that. As a mathematician myself, my instinct is to be suspicious of claims that other people’s moral beliefs are “inconsistent”. I find that people who say this almost always mean “not consistent with _my_ beliefs”. And, indeed, in this case you are incorrect in asserting that it is inconsistent to believe (A) what the story describes the woman doing should be legal and (B) that having her fetus’s arms cut off while otherwise allowing it to develop normally should be illegal.
I cannot speak for **Beelzebubba** , but I agree with both (A) and (B) above. More precisely, I believe the following premises.
Premise 1: If _A_ is an act performed by a pregnant woman which causes the death of her fetus, then _A_ should be legal.
Premise 2: What the story describes the woman doing is an act performed by a pregnant woman which causes the death of her fetus.
Premise 3: If _A_ is an intentional act that causes an innocent person to have no arms, then _A_ should be illegal.
Premise 4: Having surgery to have a fetus’s arms cut off while otherwise allowing it to develop normally is an intentional act that causes an innocent person to have no arms.
These premises imply (A) and (B) (exercise left to the reader). Therefore, if (A) and (B) contradict each other, then these premises contradict each other (or themselves). That is, if (A) and (B) contradict each other, then these premises imply a statement of the form **_P_ and not-_P_**.
Thus, if you wish to hold that (A) and (B) are inconsistent, then it is incumbent on you to exhibit such a statement **_P_ and not-_P_**. If you cannot do so, then you should retract your claim of inconsistency.
---
### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/19 "2004-03-13T05:01:46Z")
Okay, **Tyrrell** , I see what you’re saying, and it’s clearly stated, well thought out, and generates more light than heat.
If we accept both Premise 1 and Premise 3 (or the more general principle that I intended Premise 3 as but one example of), we have the somewhat odd, but not inconsistent, situation that it is legal to kill (end the life of) a fetus but not to cause harm that falls short of killing. “Causing an innocent person to have no arms” is thus more a crime than “causing an innocent person to have no _life_”—sounds weird, but makes sense because the fetus is not _yet_ a person (legally at least, if abortion is legal), but will become a person (if allowed to).
However, I was interpreting **Beelzebubba** ’s statement that I originally responded to as _denying_ your belief (B): saying that _anything_ a pregnant woman might choose to do, no matter _what_ its effect on her fetus, was okay (from a legal standpoint at least). **Pencil Pusher** objected to my example because it intentionally harmed an innocent person _for no reason_—yet **Beelzebubba** explicitly said the woman’s reasons were not an issue.
---
### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2004, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869/20 "2004-03-13T05:34:53Z")
Honestly, I can’t say for certain which way I’d go on this case. I really don’t care for the idea that the professionals can force a person to receive a treatment against their will without a court order. And there are legitimate reasons to object to a C-section. I’m not saying I agree with them, but they do exist. So, on the one hand, I have some sympathy for the woman in question.
On the other hand, late term pregnancies are beyond the point where I can comfortably accept that it’s just a fetus, with none of the rights of a human being.
I don’t think I can accept the idea that this woman murdered one of her babies. However, I can think of no reason why CPS couldn’t use her actions (putting her apparant appearance above the health of her babies) as a reason to take custody from her for the surviving twin.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-faces-jail-for-murder-for-not-having-caesarean-leading-to-baby-death/233869.md?page=2)