Woman charged with murder for refusing C-section

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Stuie


The woman obviously didn't want her incredible good looks ruined...

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kucinich
1. I'm not "ant-abortion", and I think this woman commited a crime, so your argument that all of us on this side of the argument are hypocrites is complete bull****.

I wasn't refering to you. I was talking about the Utah statute in general and challenging those who support it to make an argument that it is not a Trojan horse. (Oh Ned ...)

But the idea that a crime was committed here was laughable. The underlying act was refusing surgery. Sorry, but that ends discussion for all rational people right here. Whatever consequences that follow meely from a person refusing medical treatment of themselves are not crimnal if their sole underlying act is the refusal.

If you really think there is a crime here, ask yourself the following. If the child had already been born, should the mom be forced to give up a kidney if he child needs one? I think if you examine your feelings about this case, you will find that they are rooted in a desire to maintain male control over women - not about the fetus involved.

[QUOTE]2. Their idea isn't that we have to do everything possible to keep the baby alive, but rather you can't do anything specifically to kill the baby.[QUOTE]

In a strict sense, the mother is charged with not doing something. I.e. not having a c-section.

If you assume the fetus has rights after a certain point, then their position is COMPLETELY CORRECT.

No, if the fetus has rights before being born, then all you have is the potential for conflict among the rights of the fetus and the rights of the mother. You then have to resolve that conflict. You want to jump from fetal rights to fetal rights trumping the mother's rights. You are skipping a vital step here.

They also extend it slightly to say you must take "reasonable measures" to save the fetus' life, which is completely consistent with other laws.

Being forced into surgery against your will is per se unreasonable on any robust theroy of individual rights.

If the fetus is a person, then this is NOT INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES! Rather, this is one person doing something to another person.

Again, the issue here is not doing something.

And even if a fetus is a person, then the issue is still individual liberties. Presumably, the fetus has some right to survive if a person. But the mom has a right not to be subjected to medical procedures against her will.

Now, I assume you are willing to agree that a dying child who needs a kidney has no claim on his mom's kideneys. If so then the general principle to be drawn is that one cannot be subjected to medical procedures even if failure to be subjected will result in another's death. In this case, the fetus may have the right to survive (if a person) but that right cannot trump the right of control over another's body - including the mother's.

You either believe in the right to preserve the integrity of your body or you don't. If you do believe in this right, then you are going to have to live with the ****ty reasons some people are going to have for letting others die.

If you don't believe in this right, then you are relinquishing control of your body to society as well. Bear that in mind.

If you believe in this right for you and not for this woman, then you are a sexist.

So which is it?

If you then assume that a c-section is a reasonable procedure when balanced with someone's life, then their position is again correct.

See above. A c-section may be a reasonable risk to take by choice, but it is unreasonable to force someone.

What if this woman wanted to avoid a c-section out of fear of the procedure (which may be the reason - all we have so far is a prosecutor's word to go on)? Would it then be OK?

If it is OK out of fear, then what is the general principle that allows a woman to say no out of fear and how does that principle exculed the case of a woman acting out of vanity?

And if fear isn't sufficient, then why are you subordinating a woman's life to a fetus? How is that not just blatant sexism?

I don't think you've thought this thing through. I think you had a gut reaction that the woman's reason for refusing the c-section was disgusting and went from there. Take some time, consider the questions I have asked, and then make a defensible point if you still believe you are right.

[Az]

Originally posted by Agathon
Moronic white trash should not be allowed to have children, or sex for that matter.

Yeah. I think we should send them all to camps, and burn them there.

The black people, too.

[CharlesBHoff]

I normal donot have any sug operation done on me as it is too riskly. Than person in a certain frame of mind can be very riskly to operate upton against her will that why the docotor didnot push the issue. It is than fact it than parent believe that he or she will die on the operation table it is 90 % plus change that they will die on the operation table.

[CharlesBHoff]

The gas or drug they use to put you under put your body in a death like state righ on the fine line between life and death. That is how a baby surv being born it is in a death like state an the doctor need to spank it rear end to take it out of it death like state and to start to beath air.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Do note that this woman did nothing to kill the baby.

You missed this part of my post:

They also extend it slightly to say you must take "reasonable measures" to save the fetus' life, which is completely consistent with other laws.

[Kuciwalker]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by The Templar
No, if the fetus has rights before being born, then all you have is the potential for conflict among the rights of the fetus and the rights of the mother. You then have to resolve that conflict. You want to jump from fetal rights to fetal rights trumping the mother's rights. You are skipping a vital step here.[/q]

Wouldn't the right to live necessary supercede the right to have an abortion?

Being forced into surgery against your will is per se unreasonable on any robust theroy of individual rights.

No, it isn't.

See?

If you're arguing a purely rights-based morality, then this debate will go nowhere. If you are even slightly utilitarian, though, then you have to admit that there is always something that could allow such a rights violation. Heck, people can be forced to live in a cage for their entire lives - is this less a violation than a surgical procedure?

Again, the issue here is not doing something.

And even if a fetus is a person, then the issue is still individual liberties. Presumably, the fetus has some right to survive if a person. But the mom has a right not to be subjected to medical procedures against her will.

And in this case, the procedure is a reasonable enough trade-off for the life of the fetus that that right of hers loses out.

Now, I assume you are willing to agree that a dying child who needs a kidney has no claim on his mom's kideneys. If so then the general principle to be drawn is that one cannot be subjected to medical procedures even if failure to be subjected will result in another's death. In this case, the fetus may have the right to survive (if a person) but that right cannot trump the right of control over another's body - including the mother's.

Again, in this specific case the procedure is reasonable enough. There are no absolute, inviolable rights.

See above. A c-section may be a reasonable risk to take by choice, but it is unreasonable to force someone.

Why?

What if this woman wanted to avoid a c-section out of fear of the procedure (which may be the reason - all we have so far is a prosecutor's word to go on)? Would it then be OK?

1. We have more than just the prosecutor's word

2. It depends on whether or not the fear is justified - if it isn't, then the procedure is reasonable.

If it is OK out of fear, then what is the general principle that allows a woman to say no out of fear and how does that principle exculed the case of a woman acting out of vanity?

Beside the point, but it's because vanity is a ****ing STUPID reason to let someone die.

[Ned]

The Templar, I agree with you on the point that no one, in principle, should be forced to have surgery. However, when a person is incompetent, courts appoint a guardian who can consent to surgery even against one's will.

That is what the state of Utah should have tried here.

[Urban Ranger]

But the operation is not on the baby, which is imcompetent, but on the woman. If the woman is somehow deemed incompetent, one wonders why this hadn't been argued before the court so she was made to have surgery.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Agathon
Moronic white trash should not be allowed to have children, or sex for that matter.

I was born in a trailer park. I ain't ashamed of where I come from.

Course, I ain't gonna breed, neither, so I guess I don't have a point.

[The Mad Viking]

If I start to it is because this thread has got me very very

1. The woman has mental problems.
2. The woman did NOT CAUSE the death of the child. Failing to take action to save the life of someone at risk is not murder. If you fall in the water, and can't swim, and I don't jump in and save you, I can't be charge with ANYTHING. Not negligence, not mischief.
3. As Ming eloquently pointed out, this is based on Doctor's OPINIONS and on PROBABILITY. We cannot even be sure that the outcome would have been different had she had a C-section earlier.

Now, other ridiculous implications that calling this murder would have:

1. A doctor shows up two hours late for a C-section. The baby almost pulls through, but dies hours after childbirth. It seems clear that if the C-section had been done on time, it would have made the difference for surival. Doctor is charged with MURDER.

2. As killing an unborn child at any age is murder, except for legal abortion- then taking birth control pills is murder. Because contrary to their name, they do not prevent conception. They allow conception, but prevent the "unborn child" "fertilized egg" from implanting on the uterine wall. Thereby "killing" it. And as birth control pills are not recognized as a legal abortion method, we have no choice but to charge the 70,000,000 people using, prescribing,, manufacturing or dispensing then with murder.

[The Templar]

Of course Kucinich, you still haven't answered my question - and failed to show that your sympathies really lie with the fetus in this case and not the anti-woman results of the statute. May we just assume then that your concern is really to maintain male domination by taking legal control of their bodies?

Originally posted by Kucinich
Wouldn't the right to live necessary supercede the right to have an abortion?

Good grief. This question, right after "is a fetus a person?", is the crux of the abortion debate. And unless you can show good faith with respect to real concern for fetuses, I'm not going to debate it with you.

If you're arguing a purely rights-based morality, then this debate will go nowhere. If you are even slightly utilitarian, though, then you have to admit that there is always something that could allow such a rights violation.

Sorry, I just see the right of bodily integrity (incl. the right to deny medical treatment, not to be experimented upon, not to be tortured, etc.) is just pretty obvious. You know that in most jurisdictions if the doctor had preformed the c-section without permission that the doctor would be liable at tort for battery against the woman notwithstanding any concerns for the fetus. I think this captures our intutions that there is something fundamental about the integrity of our bodies.

Only a pure act untilitarian (and only Bentham and maybe R.M. Hare ever really held such a position) would utterly sacrifice the right of bodily integrity. My own position is probably closest to the hybrid deontic/consequentialist theory in this book.

In hybrid terms, I would argue that the threshold to abrogate rights for the greater social good is very high when it comes to bodily integrity. To put it bluntly, it is the fetus's misfortune to depend on the body of another. In fact, failing

Again, if one's kid needs a kidney one should not be forced to donate the kidney. Everyone agrees here I think - this is not controversial. We might think its better to donate the kidney. We might even think its despicable if the parent doesn't. But we are not going to force it. If you agree so far, then why should a kid (assuming a fetus is a person) have a greater hold over his/her mother's body in the womb than once born? Doesn't a child who is born have a greater social utility than a fetal one?

Please state your general principle for discriminating the cases.

And a libertarian would argue that the right to one's bodily integrity is one's most fundamental property right. Full stop. Just as you can eject a squatter from your house, you can eject a fetus squatting in your womb.

And in this case, the procedure is a reasonable enough trade-off for the life of the fetus that that right of hers loses out.

Interesting that a male has made this judgement. In fact how did you come to this judgement? What hold does a fetus have over a woman's body? What right does that fetus claim?

The reason why I think your maleness is relevant here is that it means (barring certain scientific advancements) you will never be in this situation. You do not see the level of control you are trying to impose over the body of another. You are pretty cavalier here in trading off rights. Would you be so inclined if for the greater public good of preventing overpopulation we gave you a vasectomy against your will? Then we could violate your reproductive rights and your bodily integrity for the greater good. Would you be comfortable with that?

Now, I assume you are willing to agree that a dying child who needs a kidney has no claim on his mom's kideneys. If so then the general principle to be drawn is that one cannot be subjected to medical procedures even if failure to be subjected will result in another's death. In this case, the fetus may have the right to survive (if a person) but that right cannot trump the right of control over another's body - including the mother's.

Again, in this specific case the procedure is reasonable enough. There are no absolute, inviolable rights.

Oh, so you do favor forcing a parent to donate a kidney to a child!


You really left the reservation then. BTW, what is your blood type? There are some people who need organs and they might be more important than you ...

[East Street Trader]

I know nothing about Utah law. But most systems of criminal law require more than mere inaction upon which to found criminal responsibility.

Thus should you see someone about to jump off a cliff and do nothing you commit no criminal offence.

Society does require parents to care for their children but the effect of them neglecting to do so is for society to take the children away from the parents (so as to attempt to substitute effective care) not for criminal charges to be brought.

Even after a child is born there are (in England and I suspect elsewhere) special rules which protect the mother from too rigorous a regime - until the baby reaches the age of one the killing of the child by the mother will be charged as infanticide not murder.

Despite knowing nothing of Utah law there are enough oddities about this that I would not be surprised to find that it is a piece of misreporting.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
But the operation is not on the baby, which is imcompetent, but on the woman. If the woman is somehow deemed incompetent, one wonders why this hadn't been argued before the court so she was made to have surgery.

Absolutely agreed, UR. The people who should be prosecuted are the doctors who failed to notify the proper authorities in time to act. I think it would soon have been found that woman was high on drugs and not really in her right mind. A guardian could have been appoint to take charge of the woman while there was still time.

However, if she were of completely sound mind, I think she has the full right to stand her ground even if it results in the death of her unborn infant.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Kucinich

Originally posted by The Templar

See above. A c-section may be a reasonable risk to take by choice, but it is unreasonable to force someone.

Why?

I realise I'm dealing with a topic you may be unfamiliar with, but women have things called "vaginas". From these, babies are known to sometimes emerge from alive without the need for surgery.