Woman Intentionally Refuses C-Section, Baby Dies

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-03-12 05:28pm

murder would be excessive, but there's nothing that would prevent a DA from bringing up manslaughter charges. or neglect charges of some sort.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2004-03-12 05:48pm

So, what are the mother's legal responsibilities in scenarios where only invasive surgery can save the child's life? Can we force people to undergo potentially harmful surgery, putting their health and life at risk for another, and hold them criminally responsible if they refuse?

One friend likened it to a scenario where your friend would die without you donating a kidney. In refusing to undergo the procedure, you maintain your health and safety but guarantee the death of the friend. This fellow I chatted with went a bit overboard, going so far as to say that the doctors calling the police over this would be identical to them calling the police on you if they knew you possessed a rare blood type and refused to donate.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-03-12 05:55pm

completely different scenarios. in the case of the mother & child the child is already dependent upon the mother for support and there's absolutely no other alternative to saving the child's life.

in the scenario with the friend donating an organ, there's likely other donors that have a compatible type that could give it to them. and the guy who needs the transplant isn't already dependent upon his friend to survive in any other fashion

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2004-03-12 06:02pm

Darth_Zod wrote:completely different scenarios. in the case of the mother & child the child is already dependent upon the mother for support and there's absolutely no other alternative to saving the child's life.

in the scenario with the friend donating an organ, there's likely other donors that have a compatible type that could give it to them. and the guy who needs the transplant isn't already dependent upon his friend to survive in any other fashion

I understand, which is why I said it was overboard. But I think the basic concept is still debatable - is it reasonable to say that anyone could be placed in a situation where they must undergo surgical procedures or face criminal charges as a result, especially in cases such as this where the death of the child would have occurred had the mother opted for unassisted 'natural' childbirth?

Please point out if I'm foolishly overlooking something important, mind, but say she'd never gone to a doctor and had stayed at home with a midwife. The baby would have been stillborn and likely written off a natural death, no?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-12 07:36pm

This is part of a chat I'm having with someone from another forum who brought their views up in a similar thread. I'm wondering what you think given she got quite a harsh feedback for the most part. Half the chat is missing from the beginning.

SB Valdemar: Feck, I had a decent reply then and I wiped out. But to sum up in a not as elegant way, it's her choice and the doctors are only advisors like the advisors for the President in the event of war. It is her concious choice and she has to live with the consequences if they turn out to be bad.

Yomiko001: ok so exactly what i believe

Yomiko001: that sums up everything right there that worries me about this whole argument

SB Valdemar: Yes, but we differ elsewhere I suppose.

Yomiko001: you mean what should happen to her if things go south?

Yomiko001: well you can't call it murder if the body isn't able to physically perform a function correctly

Yomiko001: she has no real control over that

SB Valdemar: Well, yes. There must be something done to make sure the choice in going against expert advice is dealt with.

Yomiko001: ... ok your back to scaring me

SB Valdemar: The murder thing was stupid, it's like they're saying she took an ice-pick to her baby.

Yomiko001: ok the concept of expert advice is bs

SB Valdemar: Scaring you? But you don't see ignoring expert advice which could save a life as being wrong?

Yomiko001: they're human and can't see the future

SB Valdemar: But they are well informed and more so than the mother.

Yomiko001: doesn't matter

Yomiko001: they aren't the mother

Yomiko001: it's her that has to live with the results

Yomiko001: not them

SB Valdemar: They do have to deal with the fact the mother may make a stupid decision that may kill the baby and risk her own life. It boils down to the same thing with certain religions where parents deny a child treatment because it goes against their religious ideals. If this mother played the religion card, I bet she'd get off scot free.

Yomiko001: See for me, it's the fear that in 10 years or so, the minute your shown to be pregnant you loose all rights as a human being until you'lve sucessfully given birth.

Yomiko001: but religion can't be the only reason

Yomiko001: it can really be anything... the reason doesn't matter

SB Valdemar: But you're not intending to get pregnant and are essentially a lesbian anyway. So I don't see why you fret so.

Yomiko001: ... just because im a lesbian doesn't mean i dont want to have kids

Yomiko001: more over it doesn't mean i dont feel for the mothers caught up in these situations

SB Valdemar: Religion as a reason to defer treatment that could save a life is bullshit, through and through. This is for the parents giving consent to children, not an adult, mind.

Yomiko001: i mean, given the power... i'd just murder every male on the planet that thought they could dictate the specifics of someone elses body

Yomiko001: but i dont have the power to protect people like that

Yomiko001: and its fucking frustrating

SB Valdemar: But then I can't see how anyone could defend a parent who may have a kid unconcious in need of surgery and won't allow it because of some bullshit religious text they follow. That's just wrong.

Yomiko001: no... no i wouldn't either

Yomiko001: my end goal is to preserve life

Yomiko001: but i dont want to do it by the numbers

SB Valdemar: Well that's what I want too, hence not trying to hang this woman.

Yomiko001: argh...

Yomiko001: theres nothing i can possibly draw on as an analogy for a guy

Yomiko001: it's impossible to make you understand

Yomiko001: and just saying imagine the emotional situation wont do crap

SB Valdemar: It's questionable ethics. Some believe the mother has the priority to survive and do what she wants with her baby, others see opposite. I'm in the middle right now, I can see problems and so on on both sides.

Yomiko001: the mother has the right to survival, but not to do whatever she wants with her child

Yomiko001: ... *sighs*

SB Valdemar: So now we have a paradox of sorts.

Yomiko001: no we don't

Yomiko001: whatever implies a great many things

Yomiko001: decisions that involve her life being at risk should be made by her

Yomiko001: priority of survival

Yomiko001: but she can't just kill the kid because she doesn't want it

SB Valdemar: But then what if the child is having complications and the only way to save it is by C-section? It's either the mother denies it for a risk that she may come off bad or the baby dies from a definite probability of brain damage etc.

Yomiko001: thats still her choice

Yomiko001: the C-section has a chance of being fatal, it's up to her to decide wiether to risk it

Yomiko001: i mean ultimately, shes giving her body so that child has a chance of being born

SB Valdemar: So should there be no consequences if she actively ignores the advice to take that and save the baby in return for a small threat to her? Because that's what we get back to with this case and we've gone full circle.

Yomiko001: no there shouldn't

SB Valdemar: And it was her choice to have that baby. She has to accept the responsibility.

Yomiko001: but not to the threat of death

Yomiko001: thats not responsibility thats just... mean

Yomiko001: you can be a perfectly caring mother and still not want to die

SB Valdemar: Death is a very real threat in child birth, ask any maternal expert. It's not a perfect procedure as I stated.

Yomiko001: i know that

Yomiko001: thats why she should have control

Yomiko001: !!!!

Yomiko001: your making me more upset than the thread just because i see you as a normally reasonable person... is the whole world out to like murder me or something?

SB Valdemar: I think we're just going around in circles here. It's clear we can't solve something that no one I know can agree on either way.

Yomiko001: theres nothing to agree on!

Yomiko001: it's her right

Yomiko001: her body

Yomiko001: if your to take that away no ones going to have kids

SB Valdemar: I'm not out to murder you, that's absurd. You're getting emotional for no reason, just got to accept your views are not that for everyone.

Yomiko001: but my views don't impose restrictions on others

Yomiko001: they can do as there own morality tells them to

Yomiko001: yours does

Yomiko001: im not about to tell someone what they can or can't believe, even if i dont agree with it

SB Valdemar: But they also allow irrational decisions without consequences that could save a new life. Yours allows the mother to deny that right to live. I'm perfectly agreed with second-trimester abortion, but if we get to the point where the baby is about to be born, that's hard ball stuff.

Yomiko001: no its not, if anything abortions are worse than this

Yomiko001: if the child would have died naturally its much different

Yomiko001: and irrational choices are still the choices of the person making them

Yomiko001: reguardless of how they come out

Yomiko001: i refuse to condem someone to death

SB Valdemar: The fact is, before the end of the second-trimester, the foetus is not alive anymore than skin cells. After that as in this case, it is a human being for all intents and purposes. If the foetus poses a risk to the mother before the second trimester, then it's easy to abort given the mother is a complete being in that regard.

SB Valdemar: By the way, there's a lot of idiots coming out of the woodwork in that thread...

Yomiko001: noticed

Yomiko001: and im not saying i want to murder babies, don't paint me in that picture

SB Valdemar: Rational thought isn't something most have, and common sense isn't as common as it should be.

Yomiko001: i just don't want to kill mothers over children... i want them to decide

SB Valdemar: I'm not saying you are actively out to murder, that's clear as crystal.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-03-12 11:32pm

Isolder74 wrote: Mormons do not beleive that medicine is of the Devil!

I live in Utah and I know these thing!

The babies in questions were weeks from birth when the proceedure was recomended. The truth of the matter is if the C-Section was done both babies weould have lived. She refuced the proceedure because she didn't want to be cut like that. And LDS Hospitol is one of the best in the State next to the University Hospital at The University of Utah.

Utah had the first Artificial Heart. University Hospitol invented the Heart Bypass unit in joint efforts with other hospitols. One of the Top leaders of the church is a Heart Surgion for goodness sake! Does that sound like Mormons do not believe in Medicine to you?

The ones way out in the boonies often refuse modern medicine, instead just annointing the person with oil, praying over them, and then "letting God decide." You might call them super-fundamentalists. Many of them were actually excommunicated from the Mormon Church for being so extremist in their beliefs.

If it in any way balances it, though, at least you don't have "snake-handlers" in your state.