Woman Refuses Caesarean, Charged With Murder

AP ^ | 3-12-04

[TigersEye]

She probably should have agreed to the surgery. The Doctors probably were right. But the probability of an opinion being right, does not elevate it to Godlike proportions.

The real problem, here is that there is an implied assumption that a medical opinion should be given some sort of sacred status. There is nothing in our basic philosophy of Government in America, which would justify that status, or take away the right of the individual to reject such advice.

William Flax

Amen to that!

[TigersEye]

At minimum she should be sterilized, to prevent any further endangerment to her precious skin surface.

The late breaking news is that she had two previous C-sections and scarring was not an issue to her. She also denies that she was told she had to have a C-section.

She denies she was advised to have a C-section with the twins and also denies she refused to have one to avoid a scar. She said the twins were ultimately born by C-section. "I've never refused a C-section," Rowland said. "I've already had two prior C-sections. Why would I say something like that?"

Somebody's lying. Either way I'm not prepared to accept that the state can mandate major surgery based on a doctor's opinion. Doctors may be well informed about medicine and physiology but a diagnosis is still just an opinion.

[Mamzelle]

Twins are often high-risk--and if the woman didn't like the diagnosis, there was also the other option of finding another doc/opinion quickly.

You're trying to sell natural vs. Csec, and we don't know enough to argue that point--except that a pro said that the Csec was necessary, she wandered off, and one baby is dead. Good enough for me.

I'll bet on the doc's judgement here--

[Mamzelle]

I had not read here that it was capital murder; that is absurd. I'll check that one out.

You assume this doc had some animus, some ego pettishness, that the patient was daring to not obey his "bossing"-- what is far more likely is that this doc would have loved to send the patient packing, but that would be abandonment in this context, and would even set up med personnel for criminal charges.

You don't take seriously the fact that the doc and personnel have the charge of protecting the lives of people who put themselves under their care . You also imply that this was something to do with money? --that a CSection pays more? That's just plain laughable. We'll see if she is even a bill-paying patient, has ever paid a bill. You'd be surprised how many don't bother. And a CSection would be another unpaid rec'ble to write off...

If you want to talk egos, what we have here are personnel who are angry that they lost a patient that they didn't have to, that a life was lost and they have to bear some responsibility because they took this woman on as a patient in the first place.

A doc can't force someone to undergo a surgery, he didn't try and this will not be any possibility for you to worry about in the future--but now the mother can face consequences of her own. If you assume responsibility for a child, take him to a pro, and a pro says, "your child will die if you do not quickly do X..." then don't be surprised if the authorities knock on your door after the funeral if you have refused to take proper care of a child. She bears the burden--