Doctor Gets Court Order to Confine Pregnant Woman Against Her Will

[muses_nightmare]

http://news.change.org/stories/docto...ce=blog-top_fb

This is just wrong and disturbing.

[crashhelmet]

This article is over a year old. The article on Wikipedia adds:

Three days into her court-ordered confinement, Burton underwent an emergency C-section, at which time the fetus was found to be dead.[7]

It looks like she won her appeal in August of 2010.

I can understand wanting what you think is in the best interests of your patient and their unborn children, but this is extreme. Especially considering that bed rest has never actually been proven to be effective in these matters. The worst part about it is that it's probable that the stress from the whole ordeal is what caused the miscarriage.

Sad.

[muses_nightmare]

Ah, yeah someone posted it on FB. Glad to hear she won the appeal.

[Greenday]

"I think you are too stressed from working and it's killing your baby, so I am going to REALLY stress you out by committing you to the psych ward against your will!"

[draco664]

Interesting that it was a 2-1 decision to reverse the decision, especially given the concurring judge's comments about the woman not being given legal councel until after she was forced to have a c-section. That judge wrote that he would reverse the decision on that fact alone.

[Andara Bledin]

Ah, yeah someone posted it on FB. Glad to hear she won the appeal.

Always check your facts on FB postings. The vast majority are old, and more often than not, also hoaxes.

^-.-^

[muses_nightmare]

Yeah I'm usually pretty good about checking. Especially for hoaxes. I had a friend posting something from weekly world news about FB being shut down on a certain date, and she believed it! *shakes head*

Regardless of whether this is old or not, it's still terrible that it happened at all.

[FArchivist]

This Is Why I Disagree With The Fetal Personhood Argument.

Between 1985 and 2000, more than 200 women in 30 states faced criminal prosecution for their behavior during pregnancy (Paltrow, Cohen & Carey, 2000). There were over a dozen known arrests in 2006 and 2007. Analysis of arrests of pregnant women has revealed overwhelming bias against women of color and a focus on low-income women.

- In 1999, Regina McKnight, a homeless, mentally impaired woman who was pregnant and addicted to cocaine, was charged with murder when her child was stillborn. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed her murder conviction and upheld the twenty-year sentence imposed (State v. McKnight, 576 S.E.2d 168, 171 (S.C. 2003), cited in Fentiman, 2006).

- In 2004, Melissa Rowland sought assistance at a hospital because she noticed a decrease in fetal movements. Doctors recommended a Caesarean delivery, but Rowland declined. When one of the twins she was carrying was stillborn, Rowland was charged with murder, with prosecutors asserting that she had acted with “depraved indifference to the value of human life”. Also in 2004, Theresa Lee Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder after delivering a stillborn son who tested positive for methamphetamines. She was incarcerated for three years before being convicted of second-degree murder in 2007 and sentenced to 15 years in prison (Flavin, 2009).

- In 2010, Christine Taylor found herself entangled in the criminal justice system when she fell down a flight of stairs in her home (Newman, 2010). Taylor’s husband had left her after she told him she was pregnant with their third child, and Taylor confided in her ER nurse that she was having doubts about continuing the pregnancy, as she was now a single mother already parenting two children. Although Taylor was in the first part of her second trimester, the nurse noted on her chart that she was in the first week of her third trimester, thus making her susceptible to Iowa’s fetal homicide law, which makes it a felony to intentionally terminate a pregnancy "with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person after the end of the second trimester" unless a pregnancy is terminated for the reasons of the life or health of the mother. Such a law is structured after the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which allows for the perpetrator of a violent crime against a pregnant woman to be charged for two crimes - one against the woman and one against her fetus. However, the UVVA explicitly states that nothing in the act “shall be construed to permit the prosecution of any woman with respect to her unborn child” (Flavin, 2009). The nurse told the doctor, the doctor called the police, and the police arrested Taylor. The charges against Christine Taylor were eventually dropped, not because of the misapplication of the law, but because Taylor's doctor confirmed that she was in her second trimester at the time of her fall and not the third.

Anyway. Yes, I am deeply troubled by the recent attempts to criminalize miscarriage, and the "it probably won't happen" argument is not adequate to ease my fears. I think it speaks volumes about how some people perceive the role of women in society, and what is says is troubling to me. Unfortunately, as far as the "fetal personhood" argument, I think it's unresolvable - the disagreement over "when life begins" and when personhood should be granted is not "provable" through science but deeply rooted in morality and religion. A pro-choicer and pro-lifer can argue with each other until they're both blue in the face, but they will not agree on this point. I can only hope that rational minds will recognize the hideous consequences for women if fetal personhood is granted and understand that their personal beliefs may be incompatible with sustainable and sensible social policy.

Also, for more info on this, check out National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Lynn Paltrow and Jeanne Flavin are both involved with NAPW, and they tend to take on any cases similar to what I've listed above. They have a whole section on the website about the punishment of pregnant women. I find the research a little lacking - it's mostly law review stuff, as Lynn is a lawyer. I would love for them to do more scientific research, but I understand the limitations. A lot of women accept plea agreements because they don't have the resources to take their cases to court, even when they'd likely win, and if the media doesn't pick this stuff up, nobody ever knows about it. Plus, research with pregnant women is notoriously difficult and fraught with logistic and ethical concerns.