#forced c-section

[pro-birth]

Cherise Jenelle Gordon - the Black Doula who was COURT ORDERED into a FORCED c-section, made a post update about her situation + need for donations:

People love rooting for the underdog on movies, now I need yall to show up in REAL LIFE. This road has been so treacherous behind the scenes and I have kept quiet long tf enough. I cannot and will not give up on this. I will not be silenced. I have a powerhouse attorney who has came out of RETIREMENT to take this case after being denied justice by multiple attorneys and reproductive rights organizations under the guise of protecting the "greater good". This is why yall donations are SO important to this movement and case because we are up against the machine, a Goliath, and the corruption is far reaching. We have singlehandedly raised $41k and are on the push to $50k as we have legal deadlines looming. I need folks to put their money where their mouth is right now and land on the right side of history.

You can watch her video explaining it further here.

[14kgoldupgraded]

Staten Island Univ. Hospital policy allows doctors to to perform procedures without a pregnant woman’s consent

“It basically says, ‘If you don’t have time to [take these steps], you can just strap her down.’”

Part of a series about the outsize number of C-sections performed in the U.S. 

The Staten Island University hospital (SIUH) policy offers doctors step-by-step instructions for performing procedures and surgeries without a pregnant woman’s consent if they can’t persuade her to give permission and several doctors agree that the treatment carries a “reasonable possibility of significant benefit” for her fetus that “outweigh[s] the possible risks to the woman”.

When there is an emergency that threatens the fetus, the policy gives her doctor even more power, allowing him or her to override a pregnant woman’s wishes on the spot and without consulting anyone else.

Doctors are allowed -- and even encouraged -- to privilege their own authority and ‘the safety of the fetus’ above the patient’s bodily autonomy. It’s another chapter in the ongoing, overwhelming assessment of people who can get pregnant as lacking personhood and being merely vehicles for fetuses -- but this time within the medical community, and thus also involving abuse of power.

“Every reasonable effort shall be made to respect the rights and wishes of the woman, but also to protect the welfare of the fetus.” 

“Because of the physiologic dependence of the fetus on the pregnant woman, the burden of consequences of her actions on the fetus should be taken into account by her doctors and staff.”

“In some circumstances, the significance of the potential benefits to the fetus of medically indicated treatment may justify using the means necessary to override a maternal refusal of the treatment.”

Those circumstances are met if there is a risk of serious harm to the fetus without the treatment, the fetus is viable, the risks to the woman are “relatively small”, the benefits for the fetus “significantly outweigh” the potential risks to the woman, and the doctor has made “reasonable efforts to persuade the pregnant woman to change her mind”. 

[...] “If the Attending Physician judges that there is emergent need to treat the fetus, and reasonably determines that waiting for consultation … could pose significant additional risk to the fetus, the Attending Physician may choose to take the measures necessary to override the refusal and protect the medical welfare of the fetus without further delay.”

Read the whole article -- it’s long but necessary. Warning for discussion of forced C-sections.

“One of the things that catches my eye about this hospital’s protocols is how nebulous they are, how loaded with opinion and moral judgment, how squishy-soft they are,” Bast said. “They’re written with all these sort-ofs and probablies and qualifiers and most-likelies. You can’t deprive somebody of their constitutional rights based on, ‘I think so, probably.’”

[themomsandthecity]

Powerful photos: Home birth after 2 c-sections

by Melissa Willets posted in Mom Stories Hillary Randall knew the doctor she was seeing during her first pregnancy "was and is still c-section happy." At 39-weeks and 4 days, he told her her blood pressure was high, and she'd need to be induced. "When I got to the hospital my blood pressure was fine,... Read more » Want to get the full story? Click on the headline above. And thanks for reading the BabyCenter Blog. http://bit.ly/1soXV3m