Did anyone hear about this story? This is a column I get in my e-mail and I love the different points this guy brings up about this case.
I'm not sure how I feel about this woman being charged with murder just for refusing a c-section and maybe if we knew more about the story and the reason behind her decision, we could understand it better.
I for one don't know why anyone would refuse especially since the dr. told her that the life of her babies was at stake. I would do anything I had to to protect those lives that I've so painstakingly carried around and loved for the last nine months.
Still charging her with murder brings up all sorts of quandries about our freedom of choice and so many other things as this guy points out.
Read the column, I know it will give you a whole different perspective on the news stories we've been hearing.
THE PEOPLE VS MELISSA ANN ROWLAND
This is one that makes you sit down and think.
This is one that could go national.
This is the story of Baby Boy Rowland.
He’s a murder victim.
He was killed January 11 – two days before he was born.
The story, according to sketchy details yesterday, began about Christmastime. That’s when Melissa Ann Rowland went to the first of apparently three hospitals in Salt Lake City.
She was pregnant, great with child, but she hadn’t felt anything move inside her in a while.
So she went to the hospital to have them check and see if everything was all right. It kind of makes you wonder if this was her first prenatal care, if maybe she didn’t have a doctor of her own.
Details about her are few. One report is that she is married, 28 or 29, and may have other children.
At any rate, she went to the hospital and they told her that there was trouble, that there were two babies inside her – twins – and that they were in distress, that she needed to have an immediate cesarean section.
If she didn’t, one or both of the babies were apt to die.
She rejected this advice.
Every time she received it.
Because, according to charging documents, she apparently later returned to that hospital, and eventually to two others, and was told the same thing.
The babies are in trouble, serious trouble, and if you don’t have a c-section they’re going to die.
The allegation is that she thought the scar from the surgical removal of the babies would “ruin her life.” She didn’t want a c-section and she wasn’t going to have one.
That’s what she told a doctor on January 9.
Four days later she went into labor and delivered the twins vaginally.
Baby Boy Rowland was stillborn.
The autopsy showed he had died two days before.
And yesterday they charged her with murder.
The district attorney of Salt Lake County alleges that by failing to heed competent medical advice and deliver her children by cesarean section, thereby causing the death of one of them, Melissa Ann Rowland committed the crime of felony murder.
Isn’t that interesting.
Doesn’t that send your mind wandering in different directions.
It raises questions about, among other things, individual rights and prerogatives, the power of government and who gets to make health-care decisions.
And, of course, the abortion people on both sides are going to have hissy fits.
Here are some things to think about.
Can one person be forced to have a surgical procedure to save another person? This case claims that it is criminal for a woman not to have a surgery that may save her child’s life. So, I wonder if your sister needs a kidney transplant and will die without it and you are the only match, can you be charged with murder if you don’t donate and she dies?
Or could the state get a court order forcing you to donate your kidney?
If a woman has multiple babies in her womb, say four, and the statistics show that survival rates are far higher for twins than for quadruplets, can she be forced to abort two of them to save the remaining two? And if she does not abort two of them and they all are born premature and don’t survive, how many counts of murder would she be charged with?
Is a woman not free to choose how to have her babies? Can a woman who rejects a doctor’s advice to have a c-section be taken to court and ordered to have one?
Isn’t she, after all, the ultimate decider in matters involving her own body?
Law and precedent show that parents can be held liable for failing to provide health care procedures to their children, but can they now be held liable for failing to provide health care procedures to themselves?
If two people who can pass a fatal genetic disease to their children conceive anyway and a child is born who ends up having the genetic disease and consequent death sentence, have those parents murdered that child?
Does motive mitigate? If a woman is motivated to reject the c-section because of vanity, is that criminal, but if she chooses a vaginal birth for cultural or religious reasons, is that OK? What if she is just scared and dumb? What if she believes that if she doesn’t have her baby vaginally she isn’t a real woman?
What if she’s a hairy-legged earth mother who just always wanted to birth her baby conventionally?
Is ignoring a doctor’s advice criminal only when it has a bad outcome? If the doctor recommends something and you choose something else and the baby doesn’t die, have you still broken the law?
Are you legally obligated to always accept the best medical advice? Is there some law that compels you to accept medical care at all?
If you want to have your baby at home and there is a medical emergency during the delivery that can only be addressed at a hospital and the baby dies, have you murdered that baby? I mean, you’ve done a medically and statistically dangerous thing that resulted in the death of a child. Just like this woman. Should you be charged, just like this woman?
Can an unborn person be murdered? If so, why is abortion legal? If not, why is this woman charged?
Many states – including Utah – recognize that an unborn person can be the victim of a violent life-ending crime committed by someone other than the mother. If you shoot a pregnant woman and she loses the baby, you have committed a homicide against that baby.
But have we now decided that the mother can likewise be held criminally liable for what she has failed to do?
Will we next charge with neglect those women who smoke or drink during pregnancy? How about those who don’t take prenatal vitamins or have sufficient dietary levels of folic acid, or get regular doctor check-ups? Have they by their failure to do certain things criminally endangered their unborn babies?
What if your unborn child has a potentially fatal heart defect which can be surgically corrected in utero and you choose not to have the procedure – is that another case of murder?
If you used LSD 20 years ago and your child is born misshapen and unable to survive, can you be charged with a crime?
Those are the questions. Society is going to have to come up with the answers.
Sometimes babies die, and it is a terrible thing, but is it a criminal thing? That’s what we have to decide.
This woman can’t be understood. I’ve never met anyone who wouldn’t give their life for their child, and I can’t conceive of a woman doing anything other than immediately following this medical advice and opting for the c-section. It’s hard to find a woman who wouldn’t gladly die on the table if it meant her baby could live.
That’s how mothers are wired.
It’s clear that Melissa Ann Rowland was wrong. If things are as they appear, she is probably a cold, heartless, selfish monster.
But is she a murderer?
She may have broken God’s law, but has she broken man’s law?
The district attorney of Salt Lake County thinks so.
Now we’ll have to find out what the courts think.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2004
This is one that makes you sit down and think.
This is one that could go national.
This is the story of Baby Boy Rowland.
He’s a murder victim.
He was killed January 11 – two days before he was born.
The story, according to sketchy details yesterday, began about Christmastime. That’s when Melissa Ann Rowland went to the first of apparently three hospitals in Salt Lake City.
She was pregnant, great with child, but she hadn’t felt anything move inside her in a while.
So she went to the hospital to have them check and see if everything was all right. It kind of makes you wonder if this was her first prenatal care, if maybe she didn’t have a doctor of her own.
Details about her are few. One report is that she is married, 28 or 29, and may have other children.
At any rate, she went to the hospital and they told her that there was trouble, that there were two babies inside her – twins – and that they were in distress, that she needed to have an immediate cesarean section.
If she didn’t, one or both of the babies were apt to die.
She rejected this advice.
Every time she received it.
Because, according to charging documents, she apparently later returned to that hospital, and eventually to two others, and was told the same thing.
The babies are in trouble, serious trouble, and if you don’t have a c-section they’re going to die.
The allegation is that she thought the scar from the surgical removal of the babies would “ruin her life.” She didn’t want a c-section and she wasn’t going to have one.
That’s what she told a doctor on January 9.
Four days later she went into labor and delivered the twins vaginally.
Baby Boy Rowland was stillborn.
The autopsy showed he had died two days before.
And yesterday they charged her with murder.
The district attorney of Salt Lake County alleges that by failing to heed competent medical advice and deliver her children by cesarean section, thereby causing the death of one of them, Melissa Ann Rowland committed the crime of felony murder.
Isn’t that interesting.
Doesn’t that send your mind wandering in different directions.
It raises questions about, among other things, individual rights and prerogatives, the power of government and who gets to make health-care decisions.
And, of course, the abortion people on both sides are going to have hissy fits.
Here are some things to think about.
Can one person be forced to have a surgical procedure to save another person? This case claims that it is criminal for a woman not to have a surgery that may save her child’s life. So, I wonder if your sister needs a kidney transplant and will die without it and you are the only match, can you be charged with murder if you don’t donate and she dies?
Or could the state get a court order forcing you to donate your kidney?
If a woman has multiple babies in her womb, say four, and the statistics show that survival rates are far higher for twins than for quadruplets, can she be forced to abort two of them to save the remaining two? And if she does not abort two of them and they all are born premature and don’t survive, how many counts of murder would she be charged with?
Is a woman not free to choose how to have her babies? Can a woman who rejects a doctor’s advice to have a c-section be taken to court and ordered to have one?
Isn’t she, after all, the ultimate decider in matters involving her own body?
Law and precedent show that parents can be held liable for failing to provide health care procedures to their children, but can they now be held liable for failing to provide health care procedures to themselves?
If two people who can pass a fatal genetic disease to their children conceive anyway and a child is born who ends up having the genetic disease and consequent death sentence, have those parents murdered that child?
Does motive mitigate? If a woman is motivated to reject the c-section because of vanity, is that criminal, but if she chooses a vaginal birth for cultural or religious reasons, is that OK? What if she is just scared and dumb? What if she believes that if she doesn’t have her baby vaginally she isn’t a real woman?
What if she’s a hairy-legged earth mother who just always wanted to birth her baby conventionally?
Is ignoring a doctor’s advice criminal only when it has a bad outcome? If the doctor recommends something and you choose something else and the baby doesn’t die, have you still broken the law?
Are you legally obligated to always accept the best medical advice? Is there some law that compels you to accept medical care at all?
If you want to have your baby at home and there is a medical emergency during the delivery that can only be addressed at a hospital and the baby dies, have you murdered that baby? I mean, you’ve done a medically and statistically dangerous thing that resulted in the death of a child. Just like this woman. Should you be charged, just like this woman?
Can an unborn person be murdered? If so, why is abortion legal? If not, why is this woman charged?
Many states – including Utah – recognize that an unborn person can be the victim of a violent life-ending crime committed by someone other than the mother. If you shoot a pregnant woman and she loses the baby, you have committed a homicide against that baby.
But have we now decided that the mother can likewise be held criminally liable for what she has failed to do?
Will we next charge with neglect those women who smoke or drink during pregnancy? How about those who don’t take prenatal vitamins or have sufficient dietary levels of folic acid, or get regular doctor check-ups? Have they by their failure to do certain things criminally endangered their unborn babies?
What if your unborn child has a potentially fatal heart defect which can be surgically corrected in utero and you choose not to have the procedure – is that another case of murder?
If you used LSD 20 years ago and your child is born misshapen and unable to survive, can you be charged with a crime?
Those are the questions. Society is going to have to come up with the answers.
Sometimes babies die, and it is a terrible thing, but is it a criminal thing? That’s what we have to decide.
This woman can’t be understood. I’ve never met anyone who wouldn’t give their life for their child, and I can’t conceive of a woman doing anything other than immediately following this medical advice and opting for the c-section. It’s hard to find a woman who wouldn’t gladly die on the table if it meant her baby could live.
That’s how mothers are wired.
It’s clear that Melissa Ann Rowland was wrong. If things are as they appear, she is probably a cold, heartless, selfish monster.
But is she a murderer?
She may have broken God’s law, but has she broken man’s law?
The district attorney of Salt Lake County thinks so.
Now we’ll have to find out what the courts think.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2004
No comments:
Post a Comment