When Choice Becomes Tyranny
There was a time when the abortion debate focused on the right of a woman to choose whether to end her pregnancy without the threat of criminal penalties or government harassment. How far this debate has moved from there was evident in a courthouse in Salt Lake City last week.
Melissa Ann Rowland stands accused of refusing to have a caesarian section to save the lives of twins she was carrying. According to doctors and nurses at a hospital there, Rowland refused the C-section because of the scar that would result and allegedly stated she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that." Rowland has now been charged with murder after one baby was born stillborn and the other barely survived.
The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, proclaimed that she was "aghast" that Rowland had been charged criminally and insisted that charges would never have been brought if Rowland were a "soccer mom," rather than a drug user with a checkered past. Other groups have called the charges an attack on motherhood or a conspiracy of anti-abortion advocates.
For my part as a pro-choice law professor, the only thing more shocking than the alleged indifference shown to these babies is the equal indifference shown by pro-choice groups in blindly embracing this cause.
According to the criminal complaint, starting on Dec. 25, 2003, doctors and nurses advised Rowland repeatedly that the twins were in danger. Doctors reportedly urged Rowland to have a C-section immediately because the twins were experiencing fetal heart problems and were developing poorly and she had dangerously low amniotic fluid. The doctors told her repeatedly that without a C-section the babies faced severe harm or death. Hospital staff reported she appeared indifferent to the fate of the babies.
On Jan. 13, Rowland showed up at a hospital in labor. Emergency room doctors and nurses reportedly attempted to persuade Rowland to have an emergency C-section, but, accordingly to the criminal complaint, she "was uncooperative and continually insisted on going outside for a smoke." After she finally yielded to their demands, a C-section was performed, but it was too late. One baby died and the other twin required stimulation, oxygen, intravenous support and antibiotics to survive. Both Rowland and the surviving twin tested positive for cocaine. The medical examiner's office determined that if Rowland had had the surgery when the doctors originally urged her to, "the baby would have survived."
