Disturbing

Defying doctors' advice [regarding cesearean section] can even lead to criminal prosecution, as Melissa Rowland discovered last year. While pregnant with twins, the 28-year-old Utah mom initially declined a recommended c-section, even though doctors warned that without it her babies might die due to low levels of amniotic fluid and other problems. Several days later, on January 13, 2004, she changed her mind and had the operation. Her daughter, Hannah, survived after treatment with oxygen and antibiotics, but a twin boy was stillborn. Contending that the initial refusal caused his death, prosecutors charged Rowland with first-degree murder. After spending three months in jail, she accepted a deal in which the murder charge was dismissed in return for her guilty plea to two counts of child endangerment (unrelated to her c-section refusal). She's now free, and serving 18 months of probation.

"This case is a tragedy compounded by a shocking abuse of legal authority," contends Lynn Paltrow, executive director of NAPW and a lawyer specializing in reproductive issues. "It shouldn't be a crime for pregnant women to disagree with doctors and make their own medical decisions. Nor should they be punished for a bad outcome when there's always some risk to giving birth, regardless of whether it's vaginal or by c-section."

And you can't be legally compelled to undergo any other medical procedure for the benefit of another person. "You don't have to donate your kidney, your bone marrow, or your blood, even if someone else might die without it," explains Howard Minkoff, M.D., chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Maimonides Medical Center, in Brooklyn, New York, and coauthor (with Paltrow) on an analysis of the Rowland case published in the December 2004 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology. You also can't be prosecuted for murder if you refuse. "So why should c-sections be any different?" the doctor adds. "That's saying pregnant women have fewer rights than anyone else, including a fetus."