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Cesareans and Samaritans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Nancy K. Rhoden
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Extract

Until recently, if one asked the proverbial person on the street to list maternal-fetal conflicts, he or she would have mentioned abortion and, when pressed to continue, looked at the questioner blankly. Now, however, the populace is becoming aware of a host of maternal-fetal conflicts. Indeed, mother-and-child, long a somewhat romanticized unity, are increasingly being treated by physicians, courts, and the media as potential adversaries, locked in battle on the rather inconvenient battleground of the woman's belly.

Some of these newly publicized conflicts—pregnant women abusing drugs or alcohol, or continuing to work in occupations hazardous to fetal health—are not all that new: the hazards of various substances have been known for years. Other of the conflicts are new, inasmuch as doctors could not recommend Cesareans or other procedures for the fetus benefit until they could detect fetal problems during or before labor. But probably what is most unprecedented is that now, suddenly, physicians are seeking court intervention to protect these imperiled fetuses—intervention that, inevitably, constitutes a significant intrusion into the woman's conduct during pregnancy or birth.

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Article
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Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , Fall 1987 , pp. 118 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1987

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References

This article is a shortened version of “The Judge in the Delivery Room: The Emergence of Court-Ordered Cesareans,” which appeared in the California Law Review 1987, 74: 1951.Google Scholar
Only one of these cases—Jefferson v. Griffin Spalding County Hospital Authority, 274 S.E.2d 457 (Ga. 1981)—has been officially reported. Another case—In re Unborn Baby Kenner, No. 79 JN 83 (Colo. Juv. Ct. Mar. 6, 1979)—has been reported in medical literature; see Bowes, WA, Selgestad, B, Fetal versus maternal rights: Medical and legal perspectives, Obstetrics & Gynecology 1981, 58(1): 109, 211. A recent report of a large-scale survey indicates that courts in eleven states have ordered Cesarean deliveries. Kolder, VEB, Gallagher, J, Parsons, MT, Court-ordered obstetrical interventions, New England Journal of Medicine 1987, 316(19): 1192-96, 1194.Google ScholarPubMed
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