03/12/2004: "First priority: save the abortions"

One of my loyal readers sent this story from WRAL.com. It's a terrible tragedy, but inevitably, someone is more worried about abortion rights:

SALT LAKE CITY�A woman accused of murder because she allegedly avoided a Caesarean section that could have saved her unborn twin has denied the charge, saying she already had scars from earlier C-sections.

Her attorney, meanwhile, said she had a long history of mental illness.

Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, was charged Thursday of showing "depraved indifference to human life," ignoring medical advice to deliver her twins by C-section because she didn't want to be scarred. One nurse told police Rowland said she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that."

Rowland told Salt Lake City radio station KSL from jail that "I already have a pretty nasty scar, it doesn't matter at all now," The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Her attorney, Michael Sikora, called a C-section major surgery and told the Tribune "it would come as no surprise that a woman with major mental illness would fear it."

The documents allege that Rowland was warned numerous times between Christmas and Jan. 9 that her unborn twins would likely die if she did not get immediate medical treatment, the documents allege. When she delivered them on Jan. 13, the twin girl survived but the boy died.

The case could affect abortion rights and open the door to the prosecution of mothers who smoke or don't follow their obstetrician's diet, said Marguerite Driessen, a law professor at Brigham Young University.

"It's very troubling to have somebody come in and say we're going to charge this mother for murder because we don't like the choices she made," she said.

As I said, this is a terrible situation, and I'm not sure whether I would prosecute the woman or not, given her mental disability. But notice that that's not what concerns Professor Driessen. She's more worried that a court might actually consider a dead child to be of any legal (much less moral) consequence. On the other hand, she has a point: if abortion is available on demand, for any and every reason, at every stage of pregnancy, then what's the real difference between what Melissa Rowland did and what abortionists urge their patients to do every day?

(Hat tip: Reepicheep)