Article on "Criminalizing" Pregnancy

[JesusFightClub]

You've got a point with the amniotic fluid and the babies vital signs, but them being a drug user and having a criminal record are not reasons in themselves to make someone's birth choices for them. When pregnant people can be prosecuted for using drugs, it could make them less likely to seek prenatal care. It can also make them less likely to continue their pregnancies, which should be concerning to the groups who pushed for these laws in the first place given that they, you know, think abortion is murder.

QFT.

If a mum has an addiction issue the stance should be "How can we help you? Can we safely help you detox? What is best for you?"

At this point it's not about shouting at her for being an addict. She knows she's an addict. That's not exactly going to be news.

[2xx1xy1JD]

QFT.

If a mum has an addiction issue the stance should be "How can we help you? Can we safely help you detox? What is best for you?"

At this point it's not about shouting at her for being an addict. She knows she's an addict. That's not exactly going to be news.

I agree.

I am opposed to government intervention with a mentally competent pregnant woman, no matter what the reason or stage of pregnancy. I fully understand the rage that people feel over the fact that there are pregnant women who are clearly endangering their babies-to-be - in fact, one of my best friends is a long-term foster mother to a son with fetal alcohol syndrome. I just think that it is both wrong and counter-productive for the state to intervene in any way other than offering voluntary assistance to the pregnant woman.

Some examples (with a few details changed or omitted due to confidentiality):

1. Teen with a cocaine habit gets pregnant. Once the pregnancy is diagnosed, she is motivated to quit the cocaine, which she does when she is 2 mos preg. Gives birth to a healthy baby. If there had been a more coercive regime in place, she may not have disclosed the pregnancy, and no one would have discovered it that early on.

2. Teen in a shelter is pregnant. She is brought to a center for pregnant teens and young mothers, where she is given prenatal vitamins, has a roof over her head and good food to eat, is taught about healthy pregnancy and baby care, and has a chance to go to school. She thrives and has a healthy baby.

3. Mother goes into premature labor with twins, who die at birth. She had an older child who was taken away due to her drug use. Senior child protection official writes a report on the deaths, declaring that this is exactly why we need fetal protection laws. A closer look at a facts, however, tells a different story. It turns out that the state was ALREADY intervening quite deep with the mother, since she was in jail at the time that she went into labor. There was no proof that drugs were the problem. Merely being pregnant with twins can trigger premature labor, and there was an allegation that the jail refused to allow her to lie down, and that the guards thought that she was just lazy and trying to get out of work. In other words, government intervention likely CAUSED the deaths.

4. Addicted mother gives birth. Child protection officials intervene at birth. Mother disappears completely, officials later discover that she had fled and subsequently gave birth to a younger child in secret.

Pregnancy can be hidden for a long time, if you want to hide it. Meanwhile, the most damage is done early on. There is no way that fetal protection laws can prevent fetal alcohol syndrome. Meanwhile, the existence of these laws can scare away those who need it most, and this is the group most at risk of simply disappearing off the radar.

[honeyinthesunshine]

Well, my point is that there *should* be liability waivers for physicians. This is exactly the sort of situation that those sorts of waivers should exist for. If pregnant/laboring women want to make a choice that doesn't conform to the accepted standard of care they should be able to do so after having been appropriately informed and after signing an informed consent and liability waiver that absolves the doctor of liability for the woman's informed choice. In my experience in the natural childbirth community, the vast majority of women (even those who are set on having a VBAC or vaginal breech or whathaveyou, if at all possible) are willing to consent to an emergency cesarean if/when things actually start going wrong.

It's not as simple as that in the real world, I have no doubt because it never is simple, but something like that could probably be implemented without too much trouble if people actually cared about pregnant women's rights.

But no, unborn babies are MUCH more valuable and important than grown women and their choices are so it'll probably never happen :evil:

This.

I am currently pregnant with our first, and we have chosen a home birth with a midwife. I want a home birth because I do not care for hospitals, and because I am low risk, we don't see any reason to labor in one unless the circumstances call for it. I am not a fundie, or even remotely "crunchy", I simply did my research and settled on the what I feel is the best option for me. My midwife has attended over a thousand (a fucking thousand!!!) births, and I am constantly assessed for developing complications. I have absolutely no problem transferring to a hospital if need be, and would have no problem with any necessary intervention, I do, however, have a problem with delivering on someone else's timeline, being pressured into interventions for someone else's convenience, (possibly to the detriment of both myself and our baby), being told that I *must* have a c-section, episiotomy, labor on my back, etc.

It kind of pisses me off that home birth is sometimes classified as a "fundie" thing. The shit these women do skews the perception of natural or home birthers in a really unflattering way. Anna's home birth with Makynzie (Spelling? I give up.) was possibly the least empowering home birth I've ever seen, and it struck me as sad. Birth can be such a cool, empowering thing, and that birth (from what was shown on TV) was just so... meh. The whole point, for me, anyway, is an unimpeded flow of labor, and there was a fucking camera crew crammed into that tiny house. She didn't plan it, they prayed about it because her OB wasn't in town, (as I remember) and that is absolutely not in any way indicative of how most home birth mama's prepare for their births.

Bottom line, birth is about choice. So is pregnancy. Had I had the option of an OB who I knew was going to respect my choices, I probably would be delivering at a hospital, but sadly, that isn't an option.

[2xx1xy1JD]

BTW, in response to the OP, I've met two women online, both religious, "crunchy" homebirthers with large families who were also OB nurses, who came to oppose anti-choice legislation precisely because they were concerned about seeing THEIR choices in childbirth limited.

6in12years is a poster that I'd known for years om Babycenter. I found this discussion about her views really interesting - she's personally committed to seeing elective abortion as wrong, but also really troubled by unintended consequences and misogyny in the pro-life movement:

http://community.babycenter.com/post/a2 ... 0762&pd=-2 (the discussion continues for a few pages)

Chavamom discussing why there shouldn't be a partial-birth abortion ban:

http://s9.zetaboards.com/Jewish_Womens_ ... /235571/2/

[2xx1xy1JD]

Re liability waivers:

In Canada, courts have recognized that there are situations in which patients can give absolute directions. For example, if a mentally competent adult Jehovah's Witness refuses a blood transfusion, the doctor CANNOT give a blood transfusion, even if it means watching the patient die.

The problem with given that sort of waiver of liability with birth situations is that most pregnant women are not going to say "I am perfectly willing to die in order to avoid a c-section". They may have legitimate reasons to want to avoid a repeat c-section, and may be willing to take the chance that there is a 5% risk of uterine rupture, but they aren't refusing for religious reasons and they don't have a death wish. This puts doctors in a really difficult position, because they want to manage risks in advance if possible, and not be faced with a higher-than-average risk that something may go horribly wrong. Unlike the JW case, with a uterine rupture a doctor would not be standing back, but would need to instantly take action to try to save the lives of the mother and baby. There is a huge potential liability there.

I'm not a fan of automatic c-section rules (I was told that birth #3 HAD to be a c-section since it would be my 3rd, and I ended up with complications from the surgery), but I understand the OB's position.

[FJismyheadship]

I think there is a huge financial incentive for doctors to do as many C-Sections as they can justify.

I could believe this. My doctor performed 4 C-Sections the day I went into labor, including mine. I heard several times that day "Dr. M will be in here shortly, she had to do a C-Section"

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

I could believe this. My doctor performed 4 C-Sections the day I went into labor, including mine. I heard several times that day "Dr. M will be in here shortly, she had to do a C-Section"

I have a friend who is an ob/gyn who was connected to a hospital that was run by a corporation outside of the state. She says she was pressured to convince her patients that a scheduled C-section is the way to go. She was also pressured to tell her patients that they needed a C-section because the pregnancy was "full-term" when an ultrasound showed the baby was fine and there was no harm in waiting a week for nature to progress.

[Ellimenopy]

I could believe this. My doctor performed 4 C-Sections the day I went into labor, including mine. I heard several times that day "Dr. M will be in here shortly, she had to do a C-Section"

I don't think it's a financial incentive so much as the doctors genuinely don't see them as a big deal. For them, surgery is normal and routine. They don't really think of the fact that this is a very special time for a family, and that surgery, and especially the recovery time when you're supposed to be bonding with your baby, can be humiliating, marginalizing, and exhausting.

My brother-in-law is an OB, and I was talking to him about my own C-section. He simply did not realize that I was separated from my son for hours after the birth and was not allowed to see him even though we were both doing well. He didn't realize that I was fighting claustrophobia from having to stay in bed afterwards (although he told me to insist on anti-anxiety meds next time). He just didn't see it as a big deal at all.

My son was breech. I didn't even have a chance to try for a vaginal birth. I think, if my OB and my brother-in-law, my husband and really all the other men in my life realized that choosing to follow my doctor's recommendations was JUST as brave, exhausting, and life changing as laboring at home under a midwife, I would feel better about it. The homebirthers do it, for the most part, because they don't feel like anyone is taking them seriously in what should be the role of their life. OBs aren't just in it for the money, but until they learn to listen and validate women, we will keep hearing about dangerous home births.

[GiggleOfGirls]

Well, part of a liability waiver and informed consent could be a spelling out of the point at which the woman would like the doctors to do whatever they can in an emergency situation. If I was trying for a VBAC (for example), I'd want to be able to labor until something went wrong - uterine rupture (which, most uterine ruptures aren't catastrophic, most are on a smaller scale, but still would require emergency action), baby not tolerating labor, myself getting clinically exhausted, etc. As long as everything was charted properly, the doctor and nurses should be able to show that they did everything they could as soon as the waiver allowed.

Spelling out exactly what sorts of things could go wrong and where the woman wants medical intervention (as well as where the physician recommends serious medical intervention) could work.

Making out those sorts of individualized waivers would be a giant PITA, I have no doubt, but something like that would be worth it in the long run, I believe, if women's options opened up without also opening up the doctors to crazy lawsuits.

[bbtlover]

I'm glad that I don't live in one of the states that those poor women live in. If I had, I might be considered a criminal just because I had a stillbirth!?!

I could have had an induction a week earlier, but the doctors actually said that they wouldn't have been able to do anything for the baby (other than to keep her comfortable- essentially keeping her warm). So we decided (hubby, doctors and myself) that we would let her stay inside where we knew she was comfortable. I think the pain of a stillbirth is terrible, but I think I would have been in complete agony if I had watched her die.

It really pisses me off that women in those states could be imprisoned or have the threat for jail for something that occurs naturally all the time.

[NeonJungle]

"Personhood" bills are fraught with all sorts of complications that do not get addressed; as mentioned upthread, liability is one. But also, what if you're pregnant and you have a car wreck and the wreck causes a death to the fetus? Will you be subject to a murder charge? If a fetus is granted "personhood," what about inheritance rights? I know those thoughts are a stretch, yet there are so many "the stone is out of the gate, and it is rolling down the hill picking up steam" issues that are not considered by purporters of personhood bills.

http://www.personhood.net/

[FJismyheadship]

I don't think it's a financial incentive so much as the doctors genuinely don't see them as a big deal. For them, surgery is normal and routine. They don't really think of the fact that this is a very special time for a family, and that surgery, and especially the recovery time when you're supposed to be bonding with your baby, can be humiliating, marginalizing, and exhausting.

My brother-in-law is an OB, and I was talking to him about my own C-section. He simply did not realize that I was separated from my son for hours after the birth and was not allowed to see him even though we were both doing well. He didn't realize that I was fighting claustrophobia from having to stay in bed afterwards (although he told me to insist on anti-anxiety meds next time). He just didn't see it as a big deal at all.

My son was breech. I didn't even have a chance to try for a vaginal birth. I think, if my OB and my brother-in-law, my husband and really all the other men in my life realized that choosing to follow my doctor's recommendations was JUST as brave, exhausting, and life changing as laboring at home under a midwife, I would feel better about it. The homebirthers do it, for the most part, because they don't feel like anyone is taking them seriously in what should be the role of their life. OBs aren't just in it for the money, but until they learn to listen and validate women, we will keep hearing about dangerous home births.

I really DID need one, and I really liked my OB... it was just interesting at that time, that all the women that went into labor that day needed Cesareans. (When a baby is born they play a little song to let the whole hospital know... the one that goes Lullaby and goodnight, go to sleep little one") Seeing as she knew I was scared of a CSection and that I wanted to avoid it at all costs, I don't actually think she would have done it if not necessary. I do wonder why they induce after 39 weeks... I wanted a New Years baby dammit :lol:

[Nothing2CHere]

I could believe this. My doctor performed 4 C-Sections the day I went into labor, including mine. I heard several times that day "Dr. M will be in here shortly, she had to do a C-Section"

Now I'm going to throw in some ancedata - my situation was the opposite. I gave birth last spring. I WANTED a c-section, and my doctors kept pushing for me to have a vaginal delivery. I had some pregnancy complications, and given those circumstances, I felt that having a scheduled c-section was in mine and my baby's best interest. I did not want to end up in a position where after hours and hours and hours of labor, and possible stress on the baby, I would end up needing an emergency c-section anyway. The specialist I was seeing told me that that hospital's system "end goal" (I believe he used those exact words) is vaginal births, and to perform c-sections only if deemed "medically necessary." The circumstances of my pregnancy put us on the borderline of "medically necessary," with us still leaning on the approved for vaginal delivery side.

The important thing, though, is despite the hospital's preferences, I was still given the choice, and had my scheduled c-section, and when my baby was delivered and they saw how big he really was, my main OB commented, "I think you made the right choice after all!" My baby ended up being almost 10 1/2 pounds; he had been estimated as being 9 1/2 at his heaviest, and his estimated size was one of the factors that made me want to schedule a c-section rather than attempt a vaginal birth. I'm fortunate I was given the opportunity to "go with my gut."