SALT LAKE CITY, March 11 - A pregnant woman who allegedly ignored medical warnings to have a Caesarean section to save her twins was charged Thursday with murder after one of the babies was stillborn. Prosecutors said Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, didn’t want the scars that accompany the surgery.I need a little more time to compose my thoughts on this - in the meantime, let me know what you think…
Update: K in the comments below has provided this link to a discussion on Fark.com about this news. The thread does bring up some interesting points. One thing that is disturbing is the absolute refusal of some people to call the baby a baby - they like referring to it as a “fetus” instead. I am sorry, but at 29 weeks I know my baby can hear me and recongnize my voice - he can survive outside of my womb in an ICU and he has pretty advanced brain activity that allows him to respond to different stimuli like light and touch. This is not a clump of cells as it is in the first trimester, but a living human being. I really don’t understand why some people find the need to dehumanize that child’s existence just so they can say “her body, her choice” about the baby’s life.
Oh, and then there are the idiots who think the woman should be left alone just because it would set a “dangerous precedent” - you know what? FUCK precedent! If someone is so ideologically bound to a cause that they cannot look at an individual case and atleast say what the woman did was atleast morally wrong, then they have issues. I think it is completely wrong for someone to think of every case in terms of how it effects their pet causes - it might be practical, but it is not human.
Another update: Here is another link with more information on the case from the Salt Lake Tribune.
Apparently the woman is married and has 5 other kids - Good Lord! That does put a pretty interesting spin on the whole thing - where the fuck was the husband during the whole brouhaha? (as an aside, I asked my husband what he would do if I acted like that woman with my baby - he said he’d kill me! He already likes the baby more than me, I tell you!)
OK, the SLT link says she is either divorced/estranged from her husband, so I guess my above point is pretty moot.
Still another update: Now she says she did not refuse a C-section…Huh?
Posted by shanti at March 11, 2004 10:25 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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This is indeed an interesting situation, especially for us libertarians. I’ll analyse this for a bit before posting, but here’s something I found in the article.
In January, the state Supreme Court ruled that unborn children at all stages of development are covered under the state’s criminal homicide statute. The law exempts the death of a fetus during an abortion.
So a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy is upheld, but only in a very specific situation? Else it’s murder? Hmmm… those seem at odds with each other.
Posted by: MadMan at March 11, 2004 11:41 PM
This does raise mainy issues.
1. If a woman slips while pregnant, falls down and has a miscarriae, is it manslaughter / negligent death?
2. If you carry the argument to it’s logical end, abortion is murder.
3. On the other hand, if a woman has a baby say with a genetic disease and is advised an abortion. She chooses to keep the baby. Can the child later on sue her?
Just noted that this story is from Salt Lake City. Utah is known to be a rather conservative, “pro-life” kinda place. Maybe that influenced the prosecutors?
Posted by: Yazad at March 11, 2004 11:53 PM
Utah is just fucked up, that’s all.
It’s among the worst states in the USA.
Posted by: Santosh at March 12, 2004 6:08 AM
The reason why I didn’t add anything to this post yesterday was that my response surprised me completely. Being pregnant, I thought I would explode in anger over a woman who would rather kill her baby than undergo a surgical procedure that might leave a scar on her.
The thing was, I still think the mother was a despicable human being in that she couldn’t see the difference between a scar and a life (I characterize the baby as an actual life than a fetus here, since it was obvious that she was pretty late in her term and the baby could survive outside of the womb). What I disagree with of course, is the charge of murder brought by state.
Like MadMan and Yaz pointed out, if she had voluntarily tried to get the babies killed in an abortion, she would have gotten off scot-free, but since she decided to have atleast one baby the normal way, she is now charged with murder and that is just not consistent and a double-standard in itself.
Posted by: Shanti at March 12, 2004 8:33 AM
Being a woman and mother myself, my thoughts reflect Shanthi’s too. I can understand some women choosing the natural way instead of a C-Section (Utah being a conservative and all). But, calling it murder is skewing logic too much.
Posted by: ripples at March 12, 2004 9:39 AM
Ripples, I think we are ideological soulmates - we seem to agree on a lot of things. I find myself seconding you on a lot of issues.
Posted by: Shanti at March 12, 2004 11:29 AM
The doctor’s were clear that she needed the c-section or the babies were at grave risk. She chose to ignore their professional warning. As far as I’m concerned she chose to kill that baby, all to avoid a scar. I don’t think this is any different than if she’d decided to try to perform a self-abortion with a coat hanger in her final week of pregnancy (and been sucessful). She killed that child, a child that could have lived on it’s own outside of her body, she should be punished and punished harshly. Murder seems about right to me.
And, just how screwed up do you have to be for a scar to be a bigger deal to you than the life of your chld?!?!
Posted by: Abeyance at March 12, 2004 12:49 PM
Abeyance, I do agree that as a person the mother was extremely messed up for worrying more about a freaking scar on her body than the life of her child - she gives mothers a bad name.
As for the legal issues, that is where I have a problem, since technically she could have still gone for an abortion at another clinic and it would have been perfectly legal for her to kill both her children there.
K, thanks for the link - it is an interesting discussion.
Posted by: Shanti at March 12, 2004 2:53 PM
Shanthi, thats good news for me!! :beam: and maybe not so good news for you!!:(
Posted by: ripples at March 12, 2004 3:05 PM
Ripples, I consider you one of the sane commenters around, so I seem to be doing OK so far :tongue3:
Posted by: Shanti at March 12, 2004 4:10 PM
Check my site (daily links) for YET another update.
Sterilise her NOW!
Posted by: MadMan at March 18, 2004 2:51 AM
MadMan, I heartily agree with you on this! Punching her daughter for eating a candy bar? Wow! She is a role model now, isn’t she!
Posted by: Shanti at March 18, 2004 8:33 AM