Florida court orders woman to bed rest against her will
Now, while the woman SHOULD have been taking care of her pregnancy if she planned to keep it, and while I DO applaud her care providers for trying to find a way to keep her from having a premature or stillborn baby, it is absolutely inappropriate for the court to try to take her right to make her own medical decisions out of her hands. She sought her doctor's advice, she decided against taking it for whatever reasons (be they right or wrong.) That should be the end of the discussion. Her body, her choice.
Putting the safety of a gestating fetus above the will of the mother and her right to choose what to do with her own body is clearly a step toward imposing even further limits on the right to choose. Which--though they seem to be pussyfooting around coming out and actually saying it--is clearly why the ACLU has taken up the standard in this case.
The fact that this COULD also lead to criminalizing behavior such as not taking prenatal vitamins, not undergoing prenatal screening tests (some of which are of very questionable benefit or necessity,) smoking, drinking alcohol, drinking coffee, or hell, eating chocolate during pregnancy is not a small concern either. We could eventually have a situation where a woman is prosecuted for not "doing the right thing" according to the doctrine of the Mommy Wars Prenatal Bible, or making any sort of alternative, non-mainstream-sanctioned choice for herself doing pregnancy.
Edited, Jan 17th 2010 12:25pm by Ambrya