Abortion foes and choice advocates alike—take heed. There is a frightening interpretation of the law happening in America—something that threatens the liberties and lives of all women, regardless of whether or not they support or oppose abortion rights. This dangerous philosophy is the notion that a fetus has rights separate from its mother, and that lawmakers, physicians, and medical policymakers can choose to place the best interests of the fetus at a higher priority than the rights of the woman whose body is bearing it, regardless of the wishes or consent of the mother.
We all know that there is a beloved cultural legend involving the selfless woman who, facing a choice between her own life and the life of her fetus, chooses to die so that the baby might live. But what if that woman didn’t have a choice in the matter? What if someone else arbitrarily decreed that the life and health of the fetus MUST take precedence over the life and health of the mother? What if being pregnant automatically meant a subversion of civil rights and liberties on a scale that America has never known before, including the loss of the right to choose whether or not to take medication, have surgery, or even to take a hot bath? Pregnant women are dangerously close to living under precisely these conditions—all it would take to achieve such a travesty of civil liberty would be an extremely short slide down a very slippery slope.
Consider the case of Angela Carder, a pregnant twenty-seven-year-old cancer patient in Washington, DC. Carder, her treating physicians, and her family all agreed to pursue care that would keep Angela alive as long as possible, but did not wish to undergo a c-section delivery of her 25-week-old fetus. Concerned about the effects of cancer treatment on the fetus, the hospital convened an emergency hearing to determine the rights of the fetus, and elected to force Carder to undergo surgical delivery against her will, despite dire warnings from her attending physicians that such a delivery would likely kill Angela. Both the fetus and Angela died as a result of the procedure. Although a federal judge later ruled that the hospital was wrong, the fact remains that Angela Carder and her baby are both casualties of the fetal rights movement.
http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/articles/angela.htm">(The Angela Carder Case)
In 1978, a man named Robert McFall, who was suffering from a bone marrow disease, sought a court order to force his cousin David Shimp to donate bone marrow. Mr. Shimp was the only compatible donor in McFall’s family, and had refused to donate of his own will. The court, while recognizing that Shimp’s refusal was morally repugnant, nevertheless refused to grant the order, stating that forcing a person to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of another would “compel the Defendant to submit to an intrusion of his body” that “would change every concept and principle upon which our society is founded”, and that such an intrusion would “raise the specter of the Swastika and the Inquisition, reminiscent of the horrors this portends.” The court established firmly that no person can be compelled against their will to do something that benefits another—and yet, when women are forced to undergo medical procedures and surgeries against their will, this is precisely what happens.
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/lawmcfall.html">(McFall v. Shimp)
Another sad case is that of Gabriela Flores. Flores was sixteen weeks pregnant when she took a medication commonly prescribed for gastric ulcers, hoping to induce a miscarriage. When Flores miscarried her baby, she was arrested. South Carolina prosecutors initially hoped to charge her with murder (and seek the death penalty) but had to settle for the charge of inducing an illegal abortion—a law that was never meant to punish women, but only to protect them from back-alley abortion providers. Flores spent four months in jail for having a miscarriage, only narrowly escaping a murder charge, which would have carried the death penalty. (SW) The death penalty for taking a legal medication that caused a miscarriage? It’s a dangerous precedent. Ibuprofen is a common medication that can harm a fetus. Taking a hot bath can harm a fetus. When we recognize the notion of fetal rights, how close are we to sending pregnant women to jail (or possibly executing them) for taking a couple of Advil and soaking in a hot bath to relieve a backache?
http://socialistworker.org/2005-1/544/544_02_GabrielFlores.shtml">(Gabriela Flores)
One might argue that Ms. Flores’ case is different because she
intended to harm her fetus, but we only know this because she voluntarily admitted it. But what if she hadn’t confessed? Is there any other way to know with 100% certainty whether a woman intended to harm her fetus or not? In a world where fetal rights are secure, another slide down that slippery slope would be to take measures to ensure that pregnant women cannot involuntarily harm their fetus. Imagine girls and women forced to endure years of education about EVERYTHING that can potentially cause a miscarriage--women who then cannot claim that they “didn’t know,” and thus are fully prosecutable whenever a suspicious miscarriage occurs. Imagine laws banning pregnant women from riding horses, doing certain exercises, taking baths, or taking medicines that might harm the fetus—even if these medicines are meant to preserve the mother’s life or health. Imagine pregnant women tied to beds and forced to undergo medical procedures and surgeries that could harm them or endanger them (and prosecuted if they refuse or flee), all for the sake of securing the right of the fetus to live. It's already happening! Just ask the Nigerian woman who was tied to a bed in Chicago and forced to undergo a c-section delivery against her will. The woman refused the c-section because she intended to return to Nigeria (where another c-section would not be easily available) and was concerned about uterine rupture during a future delivery. None of this mattered; the woman was shackled to her hospital bed, screaming for help, and FORCED to undergo a c-section because her doctors declared that her fetus' rights were more important than her own.
http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/main/publications/articles_and_reports/could_you_be_forced_to_have_a_csection_1.php">(Nigerian Woman)
If fetuses are granted rights, then even a staunchly pro-life woman who very much WANTS her baby could find herself charged and imprisoned if she accidentally does something that harms her fetus--or worse, could find herself living as a virtual prisoner because the safety of her fetus takes legal precedence over her own civil rights. This is an issue that has repercussions that reach far beyond the debate about abortion rights. When legal fetal rights are recognized, the constitutional and civil rights of pregnant women nationwide are removed from the equation, and pregnant women lose the protection of those rights as a matter of course. If we value the civil liberties of women, we need to oppose the legal recognition of fetal rights.
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