Newborn Taken from Parents Because Mom Refused C-Section

Julie Finn — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:04:55 +0000

A mom in New Jersey acted erratically while in labor. She was combative. She was noncompliant. She refused to submit to a cesarean section. She then gave birth vaginally to a normal, healthy baby (apparently not an unavoidable c-section, ya know?).

That baby was taken from her. Her parental rights were terminated. She and her partner left the hospital without their baby, and their baby was given to foster parents.

Although the mother’s refusal to submit to a c-section was supposedly only a part of the court’s decision (another factor was the mother’s decision to go off of psychiatric medications, a decision that many women make for the welfare of their fetuses), that act at the beginning of her pregnancy would never have come in front of a courtroom if it wasn’t for her refusal to be subjected to a c-section in a hospital with a stratospherically above-average rate of c-sections.

Green Options » birthing and the law

Newborn Taken from Parents Because Mom Refused C-Section