Where has our freedom gone? Since when can someone be forced to do something that is against their will? Why is it right for a goody two shoes to dictate to another? In the accompanying story we read about a doctor who threatens to force a woman into the hospital to avoid a natural birth. It might have been the "right" thing, however, doesn't the woman have a choice?
Conservative Tom
Conservative Tom
Physician Sought To Use Police To Force Woman Into Hospital For Birth
March 8, 2013 by Bob Livingston
PHOTOS.COM
After giving birth four times via caesarean delivery, Lisa Epsteen wanted to have her fifth child vaginally. She found someone to help her through her high-risk pregnancy — a respected physician who heads the University of South Florida’s department of obstetrics and gynecology.
She thought he was on her side. That is until she opened an email from Jerry Yankowitz, M.D., her doctor, threatening to have police pick her up and drag her to the hospital for a surgical delivery.
Epsteen was more than a week past her due date. An ultrasound alarmed her doctors, but she wanted to schedule her surgery for Friday. That didn’t sit well with Yankowitz. So he wrote to her:
I am deeply concerned that you are contributing to a very high probability that your fetus will die or your child will incur brain damage if born alive. At this time, you must come in for delivery.I would hate to move to the most extreme option, which is having law enforcement pick you up at your home and bring you in, but you are leaving the providers of USF/TGH no choice.
Epsteen told the Tampa Bay Times that after receiving that email she panicked. “In a couple of hours there are going to be cops on my doorstep taking me away from home — in front of my children — to force me into having surgery,” she recalled thinking.
She contacted the New York-based National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which contacted Yankowitz demanding he “stop immediately any further threats or actions against Ms. Epsteen.”
“Pregnant women are no different than anybody else in terms of their Constitutional and human rights,” staff attorney Farah Diaz-Tello said. “The threat he was making was both legally and ethically unjustifiable.”
After hearing from NAPW, Yankowitz backed down. A nurse later called Epsteen to say her surgery was scheduled for Friday (today) as she wished.
Although the medical mafia — sometimes aided by the court system — has often overstepped its bounds, Epsteen did not attribute nefarious motives to Yankowitz’s actions.
“In Dr. Yankowitz’s defense, and all of the other physicians there, I don’t think they are trying to cover themselves. I think they really do have the best interests of my child and myself at heart,” she added. “On the other hand, this is not the way to go about protecting my baby or me.”
Fact-checking…
ReplyDeleteBasic info on VBAC...
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vbac/MY01143
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vbac/MY01143/DSECTION=why-its-done
According to this source, a woman should not have VBAC if she has had more than two low transverse cesarean deliveries. The woman in the article has had four. Ergo, she does not meet the criteria, and her doctor was understandably alarmed.
http://americanpregnancy.org/labornbirth/vbac.html
The politics of this is affected by whether you are "pro choice" or "pro life" on the question of whether a fetus is a human being with full constitutional rights.
I can see where a "pro life" supporter could justify government intervention in this case to protect the life of the baby, if the scientific data suggests that VBAC would pose serious danger to the life of the baby and a 5th cesarean delivery would be safe.
--David
Where is freedom of choice? It might not be the smartest thing to do but should someone be arrested for being foolish?
ReplyDeleteYes. Child endangerment is a crime in every state. That would be the argument from the "pro life" side. You seem to be taking the "pro choice" position on this issue but not on abortion. Is there an inconsistency here?
ReplyDelete--David
If a woman can terminate a child anytime before birth or after, why should a mom not be able to choose its delivery method. That is the law.
ReplyDeleteShould the child died in childbirth because the mother wanted to have a natural birth, she should be charged with murder.
I disagree on both your points. As a matter of fact, it is not the law that a woman can terminate pregnancy anytime before birth. The current status of abortion law was established by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. It is not legal to abort a fetus that is "viable outside the womb." That is the dividing line. By the time the pregnancy has reached 9 months and the woman is ready to give delivery, the baby has legal protection with respect to abortion and (arguably) VBAC in cases where the woman has already had more than two cesareans.
ReplyDeleteSecond, child endangerment is a crime even in the case where (luckily) no harm came to the child. The crime lies in placing the child in a life-threatening situation in the first place, regardless of consequences. For example, if you put your 5-yr. old child in the front seat without a seat belt and drive drunk at 90 MPH, you are guilty of child endangerment even though you child miraculously made it home safely. Same for the parent who has a meth lab and a child in the home. The parallel here would occur if this woman had a VBAC knowing that it needlessly placed the baby at very high risk when the much safer method (cesarean) was available.
Also, if the baby dies as a result of VBAC, no mother is going to be charged with murder, because there was no intent to kill the baby (except, I suppose, in some very bizarre circumstance).
--David
Late term abortions ARE legal, Clinton signed the law and they have not been overturned.
ReplyDeleteYour arguments don't make sense. Read your second and third paragraphs. In the first you say that a woman doing a VBAC would be guilty of child endangerment and then in the third paragraph you turn that on its head.
If you are referring to the bill to ban partial-birth abortion, Clinton did not sign it -- he vetoed it because it did not allow for the exception to save the life of the mother…
ReplyDeletehttp://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960411&slug=2323612
Getting back to the point, it is not legal in any state to abort a healthy viable pregnancy in the 9th month. As I said, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey is the current, prevailing Supreme Court's legal standard.
You wrote, "Read your second and third paragraphs. In the first you say that a woman doing a VBAC would be guilty of child endangerment and then in the third paragraph you turn that on its head."
No, child endangerment and murder are DIFFERENT crimes with DIFFERENT legal grounds. Even if the baby dies in VBAC, there is normally no intention on the part of the mother to kill her baby and that intention is a legal requirement for a charge of murder.
On the other hand, VBAC by a women with two previous cesareans needlessly places the child at great risk, and to that extent, meets the legal requirement for a charge of child endangerment even in the case where the child (luckily) survives without harm. That is why I gave you the child in the car as an example of child endangerment.
Is that clear now?
--David