This isn’t really logical. I, personally, have come through three c-sections just fine, but that doesnt mean it’s not dangerous. I mean, millions of people drive drunk every year without killing anyone, but you certainly wouldn’t call drunk driving harmless, would you?
Yes, there are risks from c-sections, there are risks from vaginal births, too. My point of contention is that the risks are not significant enough to justify the killing of a full term fetus. Drunk drivers are dangerous, but one wouldn’t suggest killing them as a form of self defense. They are not THAT dangerous, at least not immediately and unavoidably dangerous, killing them is not at all necessary to preserve your own life. Similarly, a c-section is risky, but the risk is not so great that one must kill in self defense to avoid one.
Giving birth is an inherently risky proposition. If you want a perfectly safe delivery, use a condom and adopt. You also have the right to terminate a pregnancy if you think the risks are too great. The presence of a complication during delivery is not justification for a last minute abortion.
You can’t just go through 9 months, create a tiny little baby inside of you, ready to come into the world, then just throw it into the trash because the birth needs to be surgical instead of vaginal.
The baby wasn’t “killed” it was made to take its chances with a natural birth. You know, birthing the way it’s been done since the first mammals appeared on the landscape. It great that modern technology has given us the ability to save lives but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that it can be forced on someone against their will.
This wasn’t an “abortion” as you put it. It was a natural death. A late miscarriage.
Cheesesteak, the fetus wasn’t killed, it just wasn’t saved. There’s a subtle but very important difference. If not saving someone is the same thing as killing them, then I guess we’d better start filing charges against you for all those kids in Africa that starved to death because you didn’t sponsor them.
“Mortality Risks – Another study examined the association between pregnancy-related death and health care services, including maternity care coordination, nutritional services, sources of prenatal care (public vs private), the number of prenatal visits, and method of delivery. It found that a cesarean delivery significantly increased a woman’s risk of experiencing a pregnancy-related death (35.9 deaths per 100,000 deliveries with a live-birth outcome) compared to a woman who delivered vaginally (9.2 deaths per 100,000). Pregnancy-related mortality rates were higher among women with cesarean delivery when all causes of death were analyzed. This study also found that women who received regular prenatal care significantly decreased their risk of death.”
From http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr07-31-03-3.cfm
A fourfold increase in the death rate, although still a miniscule chance of death it is a large increase over natural birth
The nice thing about a vaginal birth is that if things start to go tragically wrong, and the mother’s life is in danger, they can always (usually?) do a cesarean. Maybe the study accounted for that, maybe not. I am more than willing to concede that cesarean’s are more risky, I’m not willing to concede that they carry any sort of unreasonable risk.
1920’s, let’s see anyone suggest, even suggest, making a woman take her chances with natural birth. She dies during delivery the doc can always say they just made her take her chances like we’ve done for eons. We wouldn’t do that to a person, we respect life too much for that. We use technology to save lives when life is at risk.
This twin was a human person, developmentally it was exactly the same as its newborn sibling. It was just stuck in a womb, and that womb’s owner didn’t care enough to do what it took to let it out, and let it live.
CCL, I expect parents to protect their children, even when their own life is put at risk. If you (not you, just a general you) have a child and are unwilling to put yourself at even the smallest risk to save its life, you are unfit as a parent, and worthy of my contempt.
Inadequate analogy. No one in your scenario is at any risk other than the mother. Lets make it so that the doctor is forcing the woman to have a natural birth because otherwise the doctor must undergo his own c-section.
See how that changes things a little?
How’s this analogy, I thought it up on the way to work.
There is a violent Pit Bull roaming the street and it lunges for your toddler. Do you stand by and just let your kid get torn to pieces, or do you place yourself in between to give your child a chance to survive, even though it places you at risk? I would, because I have a very good chance of survival, where the toddler has none. So too with this case, the woman had a 99.97% chance of survival, where the child had almost none.
It’s the fact that she’d rather her child die than place herself under that slim chance of death that disgusts me. We are supposed to protect and nurture our children.
I would too.
If you got scared and didn’t do it. Should you be charged with murder?
Probably not. Though if I told a bystander that “I’d rather have my toddler get killed than have that dog bite me.” maybe the answer would be different. This woman just seems awfully callous and uncaring about the loss of this baby.
You don’t know that. The doctors didn’t know that. They weren’t laying odds on what “chance” Melissa Rowland’s son had of surviving the c-section, nor were they laying odds on what chance Melissa Rowland had of surviving the c-section. (Not even speaking to complications.)
Moreover, this woman had two prior c-sections. She knew, better than any doctor, better than you most certainly, what those experiences were like for her. Her judgment was not based solely on some statistical analysis and some third party’s perspective on what was the “right” thing for her to do, but I suppose her opinion doesn’t count because she was pregnant, right?
You keep going on about her being callous and uncaring. You do know that she’s denied that this was about vanity, right? You do know that she has a history of mental illness (and hospitalization), right? More importantly, you do know that someone’s reaction after an incident is not an element of a crime and no matter how “callous” or “uncaring” she might happen to be does not make one shred of difference as to whether or not she willingly committed murder, right?
So, she got pregnant and took these kids to term knowing full well that if a c-section was needed for the survival of the babies (a fairly common occurance) that she’d let them die instead? This is supposed to be better??? What kind of decision making is this “If the pregnancy goes perfect, I’ll have the kids, otherwise, I’ll just let them die.” ugh.
The cynic in me thinks that if it were her own life on the line, you wouldn’t be able to wheel her ass into the operating room fast enough.
Legally, I don’t know if this murder charge will stick or not, they can make up laws these days to do just about whatever they want, it seems. Morally, I find her actions completely repugnant.
Here’s a more complete account of what happened.
Please also take note of the following tidbits:
From the Deseret News:
I don’t think anyone disagrees with this.
It’s the murder charge that I have a problem with.
I think that the precedent of coercing a competant adult to undergo surgery is far more damaging to our society than this woman and others like her going unpunished. With medical science as it is, I do not want a law on the books that says that I must undergo surgery if it will save another’s life, and failure to do so is murder even if that person is my child.
With the many things that this woman has allegedly done that is illegal, the state has many charges it can bring against her. Why is it important that she face a murder charge for failing to undergo a surgical procedure? What is to be gained by doing this?
Lee, I agree. Setting a legal precedent when there is already a legal procedure to deal with people who are’t acting rational about medical decisions is not something I approve of. I’m not defending the woman, but, there are legitimate reasons for a patient to refuse a c-section. (IMNSHO, her reasons weren’t legitimate.) And this woman was terribly confused about what a c-section was and the effects it would have on her. I have damned little sympathy for her, but a murder charge is too much.
Mind you, if not already done, CPS has every reason to yank the surviving kid from her.
I’m glad someone brought this up. Now, I thought that in most cases, the incision for the new c-section was made at the site of the old incision. So if she had had another c-section, she wouldn’t get any more scars. So the assertion that she did it for cosmetic reasons doesn’t make much sense. It seems more likely to me that she didn’t want another c-section because she didn’t want to get cut open again. My sister had a c-section, and they’re quite horrible. Takes forever to recover from them.
Would it have been better for her to abort the fetuses as soon as she found out she was pregnant because she didn’t want another c-section? At least she gave them a chance.
As a matter of fact, yes. In the same way that it is better to abort early in a pregancy rather than late. In the same way we allow abortion but not infanticide. You do it before they are fully developed people.
IMO, and this is why this lady pisses me off so much, when you get to the point she was at, the fetuses are no different than the newborn in the next room. If a newborn dies, you better have a way better reason than “I don’t wanna” to explain letting it die.
As it stands, hiding a dead baby around the house is a faily good indication of foul play. If we start prosecuting women for murder if the disobey their doctors, we will be encouraging more women to stash dead babies rather than reporting them.
If a woman disobeys her doctor and something goes wrong, right now, she does not have very much of a reason to hide it. For example, say that is the law. If the doctor encouraged her to give birth in a hospital because she tested positive for group B strep, and she wants to give birth at home. Say she chooses to give birth at home. If she has a stillbirth or the baby dies for some other reason, she has a strong incentive to not report the death. She may not have done anything wrong at all, but suddenly she is likely to be prosecuted for murder. Futhermore, if the baby shows signs of distress, she might hesitate before seeking medical treatment because she could fear prosecution. So finding dead babies would not be as clearly an indicator of deliberate foul play as it is now. Infants could die that might otherwise have lived.
Also, by charging this woman with murder for refusing surgery, we don’t leave room to say that premeditated infantcide is worse under the law.
Well I am inclined to reject any contention the woman during pregnancy and at all stages of said pregnancy has an unfettered right to do whatever in regards to her body without taking into consideration the fetus.
I think at some point of the pregnancy the fetus becomes viable enough to warrant protection by state laws. I think at some point the fetus becomes viable enough to result in the existence of a responsibility on behalf of the mother to avoid taking actions she knows is likely or very likely to result in death to her fetus. I think this is especially true when the mother has made a conscious decision to deliver the fetus to full term demonstrating an intent of having the baby. In fact, Utah law evidently has this principle embedded in a statute. UT ST § 76-5-201 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.
The state of Utah can file charges, based on its statute, if the pregnancy is only at 1 week, so long as it is not an abortion that brings the pregnancy to an end.