Legal News

Does Confining a Woman to Bed Rest Violate Her Rights?

By Ashby Jones

Over at the Motherlode, the New York Times’s parenting blog, writer Lisa Belkin earlier Tuesday highlighted a fascinating case unfolding down in Tallahassee, Fla.

The case involves a woman, Samantha Burton, who was ordered to extended bed rest by a judge last year because she was at risk of a miscarriage.

Belkin lays out the tragic facts:

Burton was in her 25th week of pregnancy in March 2009 when she started showing signs of miscarrying. Her doctor advised her to go on bed rest, possibly for as long as 15 weeks, but she told him that she had two toddlers to care for and a job to keep. She planned on getting a second opinion, but the doctor alerted the state, which then asked the Circuit Court of Leon County to step in.

She was ordered to stay in bed at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and to undergo "any and all medical treatments" her doctor, acting in the interests of the fetus, decided were necessary. Burton asked to switch hospitals and the request was denied by the court, which said "such a change is not in the child's best interest at this time." After three days of hospitalization, she had to undergo an emergency C-section and the fetus was found dead.

Click here, also, for coverage from the Reproductive Rights Prof Blog.

Later, according to Belkin, Burton appealed the Leon County court’s ruling. With help from the ACLU, Belkin’s attorney, David Abrams, argued that the original decision unlawfully expanded the court's right "to order medical treatment for a child over a parent's" objections and applied it to an unborn fetus. Her lawyers, in this brief, filed last year, argued that the state “authorized an unwarranted intrusion on her liberty, bodily integrity, and medical autonomy.”

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal heard oral arguments in the case. We checked in with David Abrams, Burton’s lawyer, who says Burton is just looking for a ruling saying that the state overstepped its bounds. (He says he’s handling the case pro bono and not looking for damages or even costs and fees.)

In any event, such a move raises a host of thorny issues. Belkin, for one, largely sees it as a line-drawing problem:

If a court can confine a pregnant woman to a hospital because she refuses (or is unable) to stay in bed and quit smoking, what about the women who doesn't eat healthfully? Or who drives above the speed limit?

In other words, where do you draw the line between what a court may arnd may not order? LBers, any thoughts?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 12, 2010 (boomark / email).