A Woman’s Right To Choose
Jan 27, 2010 Political
Stay out of my uterus is one of the slogans the pro murder crowd likes to use. A woman’s body is her own and she can do with it what she wants. She has a right to privacy. Teen aged girls should be allowed to get abortions without their parents knowing about it. It is a woman’s right to choose.
Should she choose life like Sarah Palin did then she is excoriated.
But there are conflicting messages coming from the groups that advocate the right to choose and the status of a fetus. To the pro death crowd a fetus is not a life so aborting it is not murder and is no one’s business. Unless of course a pregnant woman is murdered. In that case, the court will go after the criminal for two counts of murder. How can you murder something that is not a life? If killing a pregnant woman is murdering her and her baby then how is abortion not murder of the baby?
A Florida woman had her right to choose taken away from her by a judge and her doctor. Samantha Burton, a cigarette smoker, was admitted to the hospital in what was thought to be premature labor. It turned out to be a false alarm. She wanted to leave but her doctor had other ideas. He told her that her smoking was placing her baby at risk and that she needed to be on bed rest or she risked a miscarriage.
Burton wanted to leave but her doctor went to court to keep her in the hospital where she could not smoke and would get her bed rest. A judge agreed and ordered her kept in the hospital because of the risk to her unborn child. Three days later she gave birth to a still born child.
Burton is appealing the judge’s order so that precedent is not set where judges can decide what is in the best interest of the woman or her baby. Before anyone brings up Terry Schiavo (not about a pregnant woman but about a judge deciding her fate), that was a dispute between family members where a judge had to decide between what each side presented as the patient’s wishes. This issue was very clear because Ms. Burton was able to take her own decisions.
Imagine if a judge ordered a woman not to have an abortion because it is a danger to the child. How many in the pro murder crowd would agree with that decision?
As far as Ms. Burton goes, she is free to take her own medical decisions. All patients have the right to refuse any and all treatment. If Ms. Burton wanted to not be on bed rest (she said she could be on bed rest at home, which is true) and wanted to continue smoking, no matter how distasteful or stupid that is, she is free to do just that.
How is it that no judge would consider taking away a woman’s right to choose an abortion but this judge felt it was OK to take away this woman’s right to choose not to follow the doctor’s advice?
It is important to reemphasize, patients have the right to refuse any and all treatment and the courts have no authority to override any such decision. As long as you are capable of making your own decisions then you have the last word. The ACLU, an agency I hardly ever agree with, is on the right side of this issue and Dr. Michael Grodin, a physician and professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University, had this to say:
…doctors should never resort to court orders.
“People have the absolute right to refuse treatment …,” Grodin said. “It’s unconscionable. … It’s an affront to women.”
Where are the pro choice people on this issue?
Source:
Breitbart
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Tags: abortion, court order, doctors, judges, refused treatment