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I try to avoid writing about things that make me sick.
I pick my own topics so I’m not required to, there is no shortage of
subjects, and, most importantly, I don’t like feeling sick. I don’t
mean uncomfortable or disturbed; I mean physically ill.
Unfortunately this story has too many implications to ignore.
The headlines were mostly along the lines of “Mother’s
Vanity Kills Baby,” a claim Melissa Rowland, 28, of a Salt Lake City
suburb denied during a jailhouse interview with Associated Press.
According to early reports, Rowland ignored medical advice to
deliver her twins by Caesarean section because she didn’t want the
scar.
A nurse told police Rowland said she would rather “lose
one of the babies than be cut like that.” Rowland maintains she had
no idea her babies were in danger, though a doctor told police
Rowland signed a statement acknowledging her actions might cause
death or injury to the children.
I suppose a court will sort it out, but what is known
for certain is that one of Rowland’s twins was stillborn on January
13 while the other tested positive for alcohol and cocaine. Rowland
was jailed for child endangerment after the drug test; Salt Lake
prosecutors made national headlines by filing criminal homicide
charges March 8. If convicted, Rowland could get five years to life
in prison.
Rowland reportedly had a previous conviction for child
endangerment. She told AP she has a history of suicide attempts and
has been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. The case is
upsetting by any measure, but what ramps up my gag reflex is the
reaction of some to the criminal charges in the death of the twin.
“I see this as part of an overall focus of a certain
movement on fetal rights and an effort to elevate fetal rights above
the rights of a woman,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National
Organization for Women.
And which of Rowland’s rights were violated? Marguerite
Driessen, a Brigham Young University law professor told AP “It’s
very troubling to have somebody come in and say we’re going to
charge this mother for murder because we don’t like the choices she
made.”
Murder is, by definition, a choice. An involuntary act
would be manslaughter or accidental homicide. Of course Driessen
and Gandy aren’t advocating allowing women to kill anyone they
choose (I think). Specifically, they fear that prosecuting Rowland
might impinge a woman’s legal ability to have an abortion.
Friends, this is exactly why some abortion opponents
think some abortion advocates are nuts. I don’t doubt there are
legal grounds to at least argue against a homicide charge, which I’m
sure Rowland’s attorneys will thoroughly explore. But to suggest
the death of an infant go unpunished on grounds it may theoretically
prevent someone somewhere from having an abortion goes off the deep
end.
This is hardly the first time. In November 2002,
Illinois Circuit Court Judge Karen Thompson-Tobin overturned the
murder conviction of a woman who claimed her daughter had been
stillborn. Unluckily for her, her boyfriend had heard the infant
cry from outside the room in which she gave birth and the medical
examiner testified the baby had breathed air then probably drowned,
presumably in a toilet.
No problem, according to Judge Thompson-Tobin. Even if
the girl was fully out of her mother’s body the mother had a right
to end the baby’s life as long as the umbilical cord was still
attached.
Think I made it up? I’ve linked the case from the
official website of the Supreme Court of Illinois to my site,
Brentmorrison.com.
I don’t deny I hope these cases make some reconsider the
value of life. Still, that some would permit these crimes in the
name of abortion rights should give everyone pause.
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