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First of all, congratulations Abigail! I did see that you started a thread about maternity wear elsewhere and I was going to reply to say that I know exactly what you meant about tight leggings and maternity smocks.
On the issue of comparison of Ms Rowland's case with that of your schitzophrenic letter writer, I do see a substantial difference myself. Any discussion of criminal sanction involves consideration of the consequences of one's actions; your letter writer causes mild annoyance (at best) to the most powerful person on the planet, whereas Ms Rowland's decisions apparently played a part in the death of an unborn baby. But it would appear that her mental state might well have had a bearing on the State of Utah's decision to accept a plea to a lesser charge and the imposition of a probation order. It is to be hoped that this can be of benefit to her.
Pingle: [Quote] Now really, after reading things like that, would you be inclined to believe that a doctor's recommendation of a Caesarean was necessarily made with your best interests at heart?
'Your and your baby's best interests at heart' one would hope. Unfortunately I don't have the moral clarity or sureness in my own rightness to characterise as 'ludicrous' and not worthy of comment someone who took the opposite view. Then again I don't know what the opposite of my sitting on the fence would be. On the specifics of Ms Rowland's case she was carrying twins (high incidence of c-section - 50% in the UK), one foetus was not moving and the heartbeat was faint (again, high incidence of c-section), and not one, but three different hospitals recommended urgent c-sections. I can't for the life of me (as an admitted medical lay-person, but one who has played a part in discussing the giving of consent for a c-section for twins) see that she was given anything other than the correct medical advice untainted by base financial considerations. In any event, this business of money-grubbing doctors is surely beside the point in Ms Rowland's case given her stated reasons for not having the c-section. I would accept, however, that a mother's confidence or otherwise in the medical advice she receives is an important factor in the wider debate.
Of course, a decision to prosecute Ms Rowland cannot be considered without an eye to further implications. There are some hideously slippery slopes and thin ends of wedges here, and Abigail's link to the CNN article about Amber Marlowe shows that a mother's experience and instincts might be correct and her medical advisors might be wrong. This is no surprise in my view, but complicates things further. But there is a difference between a woman who bases her decision for not following medical advice on previous experiences and one whose stated reason is that she would 'rather the babies die than be cut open.' I find the implications of prosecuting Ms Rowland very disturbing, but equally I am disturbed by the decisions she took, notwithstanding the complicated mental backdrop that we obviously don’t know the half of. Still on the fence here. |
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