Mom faces jail for murder for not having Caesarean (leading to baby death)

Great Debates
21

OK, fair enough. I suppose it depends on how you interpret Beelzebubba’s statement that “the woman has full discretion over her own body”. But I think your interpretation is analogous to reading Beelzebubba as saying that it should be legal for the woman to wrap her hands around her husband’s neck and squeeze until he dies, since, after all, her hands are a part of her body, and so she may position them in this fashion at her discretion.

Though now it occurs to me that that is perhaps your point – that such absolute phrases as “full discretion” should not be used precisely because they have such clearly unintended implications. That might be interesting to discuss (how much precision is appropriate or possible in natural language?), but it probably wouldn’t be on-topic.

22

And I see now that my own Premise 1 is certainly open to accusations of unintended consequences. As stated, I would be forced to agree that it should be legal for a pregnant woman to blow herself up in a crowd, since that would certainly cause the death of the fetus. I can only ask that the reader be charitable and understand that I don’t mean that. Perhaps it will suffice to append “unless A violates some person’s rights” to Premise 1.

23

(… and modify Premise 2 accordingly so that (A) still follows. Ok, I’ll stop now.)

24

Doctors give bad advice sometimes. They cannot see into the future. At best they can make predictions base on their experience and training. People need to be able to use their own discretion in following those orders, partly because their experience and knowledge could lead them to different valid decisions. It is wrong to criminalize just for refusing to follow doctors orders. Should we prosecute cancer sufferers who stop their chemotherapy for attempted suicide? Why is this so different?

My husband has many, many times been given very bad advice by doctors. In several of those cases following doctor’s orders would have been most likely fatal. In some cases the doctor refused to accept his word about symptoms and allergies. In others she failed to read a chart, in more than one case the doctor failed to believe him about medical history despite it being documented by other doctors. Some very assinine doctors have tried to refuse him medical treatment unless he followed the bad advice. In one case he had to goad a doctor in front of med students in order to get a diagnostic test. The doctor decided to prove my husband wrong. He gave him a cystoscopic exam. The scope revealed and then precipitously remove a urethral blockage. I say precipitously removed partly because the doctor was drenched with urine, to the amusement of everyone else.

While some of these doctors were lazy, and others criminally negligent, many giving bad advice to my husband in nearly every other case where similar events occurred the doctor would have been right. The doctor made a reasonable decision that for most cases would have worked. My husband and I always carefully review any advice a doctor gives him before following it. We look up drugs, drug interactions, double check that none of the advice is likely to aggravate his numerous conditions. While we bring up any conflicts to the doctor, sometimes the doctors refuse to take the conflicts into consideration. It is vital that he has the freedom to disregard medical advice if he chooses. Everyone who is competant to make their own medical decisions should be allowed to do so without the law prosecuting them when the outcomes are bad. Women, even pregnant women deserve no less.

25

Y’know, I don’t think I like the idea of defining what a pregnant woman may or may not do.

I much prefer the idea of saying “The government and the courts have NO power except what we specifically give them.” Oh, wait, it already works that way, doesn’t it?

If a crack whore does lots of dope, gets VD, and falls down stairs, I can think of lots of things to bust her for. The idea of busting her for “fetus abuse” strikes me as way wrong.

It seems to me that when we regard a fetus’ rights as taking any precedence over a woman’s rights, we have set the stage for slavery of one kind or another. I mean, when we can arrest a woman for refusing SURGERY, for potato’s sake, why can’t we simply imprison all pregnant women? I mean, preventative detention?

We could simply impound their bodies in medical internment centers where everything they do, eat, drink, and breathe can be carefully monitored. None of this cigarettes-and-whisky nonsense. Nice, fresh veggies, vitamins, regular prenatal care by qualified medical practitioners…

…and none of this stupid, wasteful, destructive FREEDOM crap. After all, those fetuses have RIGHTS, damn you!

Sound stupid? Well, yes. But it’s the logical end result of this line of thinking.

…hey, wait a minute. What am I complaining about? I’m a GUY! I wouldn’t be subject to losing my freedom! In fact, the establishment of female internment centers would create JOBS! Stimulate the economy! After all, all those jobs being lost by pregnant women would have to be filled by someone… and as long as we keep the Republicans in charge, taxes wouldn’t go up, no matter how expensive these internment centers were to build and maintain… and, of course, someone would have to be hired to guard all those pregnant women, to keep them from stupidly and self-destructedly smoking, drinking, gardening, working out, and other potentially harmful-to-their-unborn-children actions…

…dang, maybe I DO wanna vote Bush in November… :rolleyes:

26

When I first read about this woman, I wondered how anyone could be so shallow and harsh regarding the life of her own baby. I still don’t know. But I do believe that it is her right to be shallow and harsh in this regard. I really had to think on this one, because my first reaction was “The bitch killed her baby because she didn’t want the scar! Off with her head!” But when I calmed down, I started thinking about it rationally. What if her refusal to have the surgery had carried with it an 80% chance that her baby would die? What if it only carried a 60% chance that her baby would die? What if, instead of the baby dying if the mother refused surgery, the baby would only have been at risk for brain damage? You see my point? It’s a damned hard line to draw. I’ll give you an example that hits close to home. When I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I was 38 years old, and my OB sent me to see a specialist (because I was “high risk”). The specialist suggested an amniocentesis (sp?) because the baby had a “1 in 200 chance of having Downs Syndrome”. I refused the test, because finding out the baby was positive for Downs would not have changed my desire to continue with the pregnancy. But what if the baby (who was quite healthy) had been born with some defect other than Down’s which could have been detected by the amnio and possibly corrected in utero? Would I have been held legally responsible for the health problems of my child because I refused the amnio? I would certainly hope not.
I think what this woman did was terrible, but I don’t really want to live in a society where “Big Brother” knows what’s best and gets to make all of our decisions for us. So I don’t think the woman should be charged with anything. After all, if being selfish and shallow were against the law, I’d probably be in jail for past offenses!

27

Not just pregnant women. Women who conceive when they have not been eating the correct vitamins have a high chance of their children developing neural tube defects. These defects can be fatal. All potentially fertile women need to be closely monitored. If they fail to ingest the correct nutrition or ingest substances that are potentially harmfult to their fetus, they must be detained. Women can be treated as fully human once they irrevocably lose their fertility, after menopause or complete hysterectomy. We owe it to the children.

28

I don’t either. In fact, I don’t like the idea of defining what anyone may or may not do. I’d like everyone to have as much freedom as possible. But that freedom can’t be unlimited.

In particular, I think parents ought to have a lot of freedom raising their children. There shouldn’t be a lot of laws defining what parents may or may not do. Except under exceptional circumstances, the law should butt out. Pregnant women don’t need to be monitored, any more than parents need to be monitored to make sure they don’t give their kids Twinkies instead of carrots. But I don’t have a problem with taking legal steps in the case of parents treating their children with obvious, egregious abuse.

Likewise, I believe that except in rare cases pregnant women should have the freedom to do what they think best. But I’m not ready to completely tie the law’s hands and say that it can never step in and go against her wishes. I’m not sure under what circumstances that should happen, except that they should be exceptional. I don’t know if this Utah mother’s case qualifies. I don’t know what to think about this particular case. (For one thing, she’s reportedly mentally ill; I’d want to know more about that before I could form an informed opinion.)

29

Sign me up for the complete hysterectomy, then. I like freedom.

30

We already have laws for rare cases that the state has decided that an adult is not fit to make his or her own medical decisions. Doctors can use these laws to try to force pregnant women to comply with their orders. We do not need laws to punish women for making medical decisions that do not agree with their doctor’s opinion should there be a bad outcome. How often do you think situations like the one in the OP happen? Do you think if she had better knowlegde of the law that she is being charged under now, that it would have changed her mind? Do you really think that possiblility, along with the chance, and that is all it is, a chance, that the other twin might have survived is worth limiting the freedom of all pregnant women? Worth risking that it would discourage women who like to make their own decisions from getting pregnant?

The most galling thing about being pregnant was that people saw fit to second guess any decision I made. Strangers would criticize me for drinking the half cup of coffee I allowed myself each day. Aquaintances would criticize me for eating foods that were high in calories, or fat, or carbohydrates. One acquaintance saw fit to harangue me about a breakfast I had eaten the week before. She refused to stop even though I was visibly upset and asked her not to continue, that I was following the aadvice of my dietitian. She justified herself by saying that since I was pregnant, if I did not make good decisions on my own, someone should see that I did. I was so upset that I went into preterm labor. Another woman criticized my refusal to eat salad or other raw vegatables. She was a bit more polite, but each time she saw me she brought up the issue. I wonder if she thought about it when a few months later green onions were making people sick across the country.

We don’t need to encourage busybodies like these with laws second guessing the choices that women make while they are pregnant. If you want to save babies, make laws that make good prenatal care available to all women.

But this is not about saving babies. This is about punishing women. Like my aquaintance who was upset about my breakfast, many people want to see women who make decisions they don’t agree with suffer. If she cared, when I was crying and bent double with a contraction, she would have stopped. If people really cared about helping pregnant women they could do much without treating them like imbeciles.

31

It’s cases like these that make me think that this country is 208 years overdo for a revolution, I think Thomas Jefferson would agree.

This makes me want to puke, forcing a woman to undergo surgery is repugnant. We put such a high value on survival that we are willing to sacrifice living.

(goes to purge)

Erek

32

They won’t give you one.

I have endometriosis, which, if you’re not familiar with it, is indescribably horrible menstrual cramps along with a host of other problems I don’t wish to discuss. It’s incurable and progressive (not to mention poorly understood by a vast majority of the medical community.) It can only be managed through drug or hormonal therapy, or through surgery. My mother, who has suffered through both, says she would rather give birth each month than go through the cramps.

I have tried to have a hysterectomy. I have no plans to procreate, and it would save me from a lot of pain and grief, but no doctor I have spoken to (and it has been many) will do it. I’m “too young” and I might “change my mind.” Because, goodness knows, you can’t trust a silly woman to know what she wants from life.

How much control do I have over my body?

33

I posted this question in a Pit thread on this subject but I think it’s much more suited to the debate here. For reference I think that she should not be charged with murder. I also think that she made a poor decision.

If both babies had survived despite her refusing the C-section should she have been charged with attempted murder?

The fact that she has been charged with murder would suggest that she should have been charged with attempted murder in the case of the babies surviving. I feel though, that she would have been allowed to continue on with her life (such that it is). I believe that the answer to this question may show up the injustice of the murder charges.

What do you think?

34

A few years ago, while channel surfing, I stumbled on an old episode of Barnaby Jones that held me mesmerized. It was about a woman nearing forty (I think) who was pregnant with her first child and didn’t want it because she suspected her husband was cheating on her with a younger woman.

Barnaby Jones refused to give her an abortion, which is probably in accordance with the law at the time. So she tried to induce a miscarriage by, get this, playing tennis strenuously. She managed to play hard enough to make herself collapse, and in the aftermath, Barnaby Jones gave her husband a stern dressing-down for not monitoring everything his wife did at every moment.

I have never watched this show, before or since, but I assume it’s a fairly realistic portrayal of doctor-patient-patient’s spouse interaction at the time.

It seems to me that we have made forward progress since then, and I’d hate to see the clock turned back.

(By the way, it turned out the husband wasn’t cheating on his wife, and they lived happily ever after).

35

You are right. I also think that anytime there is a bad decision made concerning children, people start saying there ought to be a law. Very few of these lituations actually need new legislation. ONly in cases were there are unexpected gaps in the law, and even then we should think again about adding new laws.

Parents abuse children. Once upon a time, we did desparately need laws to make this illegal. Now as much for prevention’s sake, but so that once abuse was discovered, there was something under law that could be done to stop it. There were gaps because children were seen as the property of the parents. Also there are at least some things you must do in the care of children, likely against their will, that would be a cirme if done to an adult against their will. Now that we have these laws, when parents abuse their children I often here the call for licensed parenting, os we can prevent abuse. If licensing could prevent abuse, no foster parents would abuse those in their care. Still people clamor, “There ought to be a law!”

36

There is a point at which I think fetuses deserve the full rights and protections we give people. Basically, when the only thing standing between fetushood and personhood is a successful birthing. No further development necessary for survival, just a birth.

The only time when we allow the actions of one person to kill another, is if the first person’s life is in danger. Was her life put in danger by having a c-section? Considering that millions of people have them every year, I’d have to say the answer is no.

37

General anethesia carries a significant risk of death. Epidural carries a significat chance of paralysis and a much slimmer, but real chance of death. Inscisions carry a change of infection. There is also the real risk that the doctor will perform a tubal ligation or hysterectomy along with the c-section regardless of the express wishes of the women. In many ways, c-sections carry more risks for the mother than vaginal births. In any case, it is her body and her decision to make. Tell me when else we are required to have surgery to give someone else a better chance of survival?

38

Barnaby Jones was a private detective not a doctor. Could you have been thinking of Marcus Welby MD?

39

We’ve decided, in the main, that birth is the point at which a child – no longer a fetus – receives the full rights and protections afforded to other people. This was one of the lynchpin issues of Roe v. Wade; because a fetus is not a person under the law, a fetus is not viewed as having rights in conflict with the mother carrying it. Different states have taken different views on this matter, some deciding that they’re willing to give some protections to fetuses at a variety of different points in gestation, and Congress and President Bush decided to do away with the concept entirely with the currently challenged Unborn Victims of Violence Act. (UVVA). In short, this issue has not been settled, as a matter of law, in any meaningful way.

And you’d be wrong. As lee mentioned, undering a c-section poses considerable risks to a woman’s life, general health and reproductive health. Because it is a significant surgery which not only opens the abdominal cavity but splits several layers of fat and muscle and incises the uterus, there is a litany of complications which go along which every woman and doctor in their right mind should do everything humanly possible to avoid. Do you really think that it’s not imperiling to life to cut open someone’s abdomen and an internal organ?

40

Y’know, this thread (and the issue/news story behind it) have led to a terrible disagreement between me and my wife.

Based on the train of logic from the OP, I concluded that we should simply lock all women up when they become pregnant, for their own good, the good of their fetuses, and the good of society.

Lee took this logic a bit further, by simply suggesting that we lock up all women as soon as they get into childbearing age, only allowing them full human rights when they can no longer bear children.

Logically, this makes perfect sense. Plainly, we cannot allow women to make their own rational decisions in this area.

(Mrs. Wang-Ka remarks at this point about how perfect strangers would wander up and grab her belly when she was pregnant, a thing she learned to hate, rabidly. She also remarks about how she had to practically hold a surgeon at gunpoint when, at age 32, she wanted to have her tubes tied… lots of nonsense about how “You’ll change your mind,” or “Yes, yes, I know you already have children, but what if you suddenly decide you want a boy? What if your current husband divorces you, and your NEXT husband decides he wants KIDS?”).

Now, following the train of logic to its logical conclusion, this would seem to indicate that, for the good of humanity, we should simply lock up all women between menarche and menopause in internment centers, where their diet and routines can be carefully monitored.

Due to the perfectly legitimate interests of government in matters of population, men would be allowed in from time to time for procreative purposes.

I mean, it’s a tried and true system. Worked fine, from the Neolithic age all the way up to the early twentieth century, yes? And I hear the Saudis do just fine with that same system, right now, no?

My wife disagrees. She says the same results could be easily obtained by simply locking up all the MEN – a Male Internment System (MIS). After all, women can’t get pregnant without access to men, can they? And in the absence of men, they could smoke and drink and eat whatever they want!

This system would have the advantage of not requiring the close, constant medical attention and assistance of the Female Internment System (FIS). Doctors would be brought in only when a male required specific medical attention. Best of all, some men would be “trustees,” based on their behavior, and could earn credit, cash, and privelige by policing the rest of the male population, thus eliminating the need for female guards!

Now, me, I don’t know how I feel about this. I mean, locking up the MEN for the benefit and safety of the WOMEN… that just seems unfair.

As opposed to locking up the WOMEN for the benefit and safety of the FETUSES, which to me seems perfectly logical, justifiable, and acceptable.

But then, I’m a guy. I may be prejudiced… :smiley: