"The best interests of the fetus"

[bain_sidhe]

I know "slippery slope" arguments aren't well received here on the subject of women's rights, but this is the kind of thing that so many of us who opposed Stupak-Pitts - and even the new language in the Senate bill - are seeing "downslope" if the drift toward writing selected "religious views" into law continues.

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2010/01/14/forced_bedrest/index.html

Florida gave Samantha Burton's "unborn child" its own doctor and legal representation,while she got nothing.

In March 2009, Samantha Burton was 25 weeks pregnant and at risk of miscarrying. A doctor ordered bedrest, but Burton, who had two small children and a job she depended on, said that would be impossible. So the doctor asked the State to intervene and, according to a brief (PDF) filed by the ACLU on Burton's behalf -- the case is currently before the First District Court of Appeals -- "At the State's request, the Circuit Court, Leon County, ordered Ms. Burton to be indefinitely confined, which had her pregnancy gone to term would have been up to fifteen weeks, to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and to submit, against her will, to any and all medical treatments, restrictions to bedrest, and other interventions, including cesarean section delivery, that in the words of the court, 'the unborn child's attending physician' deemed necessary 'to preserve the life and health of Samantha Burton's unborn child.'" As it happened, Burton was there for three days before the doctors ordered an emergency C-section, only to learn that the fetus had already died.

Can we just take a moment to meditate on the phrase "unborn child's attending physician"? Because oh my god. The fetus gets its own doctor and court protection, but Samantha Burton can just piss off. At the ACLU's Blog of Rights, Diana Kasdan writes that the hearing was carried out with no legal representation for Burton, and when Burton later asked the court if she could at least switch hospitals (Tallahassee Memorial is where she met the doctor who decided he knew what was best for her fetus), she was denied. So, to review, the state took away her right to refuse medical advice, to seek a second opinion, to choose whether to be hospitalized at all and, once that was out the window, to choose where. Essentially, the state abducted and imprisoned a woman against her will, all in the name of fetus' rights -- which, you know, aren't actually a thing.

This is why we fought it so hard. It's not so much the funding or not funding, the covering or not covering, of abortion. It's the fact that a particular religious view is being given the force of law and being imposed on everybody else whether they share that view or not. Forbiding insurance companies from covering abortion is just the start for these people. This is not just a possible future. It's here, now, in at least one state court. How many will follow?

[Fresh_Start]

1. fricking scary

where was the doctor to represent her live children.
I imagine having your mothers wisked away is not healthy for small children

[stray cat]

2. is an 8 month fetus a human? If i injure a pregnant woman and kill the fetus - its called murder

[ljm2002]

3. First, this one was 6 months along...

...second, it depends on the state laws as to whether you will be charged with murder if you kill a woman and her unborn fetus. Third, there is no Biblical basis (this is for the religious forced-birthers, not you) for such a charge, since the only mention in the Bible of such an occurrence has the offender paying restitution for killing an unborn child.

I have never supported laws that extend the definition of "murder" to include unborn children, just for this reason.

It's all about control of women, it really is. It's all about viewing women as chattel, rather than active agents in their own lives. It is easy to say "well it's complicated because now there is another person involved". Well that unborn child is not yet a person, and in my view, the woman who already is a person in every sense, including the legal sense, must take priority and be allowed to exercise her own autonomous judgment.

No matter how you slice it, in this case she was falsely imprisoned and denied due process, and I hope she sues the pants off the bastards.

[bain_sidhe]

5. Is it only state laws?

I could have sworn a federal law was passed that did the same thing... I know it was proposed, but now I'm questioning whether I ever heard the final outcome...

Edit upon googling -

There is a federal law, passed in 2004, but it only applies to fetal "murder" during the commission of a federal crime, or one on federal land.

[bain_sidhe]

4. That murder designation itself

was one of the anti-choicer's stepping stones toward full control of women's reproductive system. Many women tried to get the legislation changed to incur additional penalties for harming a fetus in the commission of an assault on a woman - like using a gun in a robbery. But the anti-choicers wouldn't stand for that, they wanted it to be seen as a separate crime against the fetus. It's on the same line of reasoning as this case - giving the fetus rights, with a view toward having those rights eventually override the rights of the actual person carrying the fetus.

[ThomCat]

7. Right. I remember that.

And now people here will use those stepping stones to state that further erosions of rights are reasonable. :(

Fetuses should not have their own rights independent of the mother than carries them, and this case shows exactly why. This is the worst case scenario we worried about from the beginning. A women's rights entirely taken away from her, so that she is legally turned into an enslaved incubator for a fetus. :(

[bain_sidhe]

9. And, again, in terms of the health care bill

it's about giving *some* religious views the force of law. In this case, women's rights are abridged, but once you start down the path of enshrining particular religious views in our legal code, there can be many more that will be affected.

[The Doctor.]

6. Yeah, fuck her other children, they're on their own.

:mad: :mad:

We need to look after living, breathing children with needs for fuck's sake.

I wonder what would have happened if the living children had an attorney too?

[Contrary1]

8. What should have happened:

All the money spent on lawyer and court fees could have been used to pay Ms. Burton's salary and help to care for her children while she was on bed rest.

But, then the idiots would have been pissed off that she had received state "welfare".

[bain_sidhe]

10. Nice, but beside the point

Yes, it would have been great if she had had state support so that she could afford the bed rest that was recommended. But she didn't, and her right to assess her personal situation and make her choices accordingly was taken away.

[surrealAmerican]

11. They essentially imprisoned this woman for being unable ...

... to follow her doctor's orders. I hope she wins her case, because, even without "fetal personhood" issues, this is a terrible precedent to set. Doctor's orders ought not be given the force of law in a free society.

[bain_sidhe]

12. Good point!

That's another worrisome precedent. But to me, the main one is enshrining religious doctrine into our legal system, because the Christo-fascists (note, not all Christians are Christo-fascists) have made so much progress in that area already, and are poised to make further progress with the "abortion coverage exclusion" in the health care bill.

[nomorenomore08]

13. Sometimes the best interest of the fetus is not to be born. Just saying...

:(