Reply #35: Who cares if she is sympathetic? [View All]

Fortunately, our legal rights are not determined by whether or not people like us. It does not matter if Rowland is a "good" person or a "bad" person. She has the same rights of every other American citizen. If she loses these rights, then we are all in trouble.

If a jury convicts of Rowland of murder and the courts uphold this conviction, then the courts will have established a very bad legal precedent. Other pregnant women, including "sympathetic women," may discover that they have lost the right to make medical decisions for themselves. If a doctor is not happy with his or patient's behavior, he or she can simply go to the courts to force her to behave. For example, let's pretend that a woman decides that she wants natural childbirth after visiting her doctor. Unfortunately for her, her doctor does not believe that natural childbirth is safe so he (or she) decides to report the patient for child endangerment. Should this woman go to jail for daring to disagree with her doctor?

For more information about this case, see: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595048573,00.html .