Morning Roundup: Montana Judge Orders Hysterectomy

Beth Saunders

by Beth Saunders, RH Reality Check

March 7, 2011 - 10:08 am

Operation Rescue holds breath, stamps feet about Planned Parenthood funding, Arkansas legislature introduces “fetal pain” bill, will GOP choose budget cuts or denial of women’s rights, and a Montana judge orders a hysterectomy against a woman’s will.

  • Operation Rescue will be staging a protest in front of Speaker John Boehner’s district office in Ohio today, demanding that Planned Parenthood be defunded.
  • The Arkansas legislature is jumping on the “fetal pain” bandwagon by introducing a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, on the false premise that the “unborn” can feel pain at that time.
  • If faced with the choice between budget cuts, or denying women’s reproductive rights – what will GOP House members decide? It seems they are pretty conflicted on that point. “’That’s a problem – and I mean, a real problem,’ said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.” The anti-choice Chris Smith, of course, says “he’d vote against any budget that doesn’t ‘preserve life.’” But Rep. David Schweikert, a freshman member,  said “he’d vote for a budget that lacks new restrictions on the procedure because current law already bans federal dollars from being used for most abortions.”
  • Imagine you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and your doctor tells you the best chance for survival is a hysterectomy. You decide against the procedure. Your body, your business, right? Not the case for a Montana woman who was declared incompetent because of her decision and was ordered by a judge to have her uterus removed two days later. The Montana State Supreme Court has stepped in, and allowed a 30-day period for appeal.

Mar 7

Mar 6

Mar 5

Mar 4

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  • crowepps

    There is a comment at:

    Abortion Law: Mother Denied Abortion, Then Had To Watch Baby Die

    http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2011/03/07/4d746bd70eb25

    <blockquote>

    And had this baby lived, this miracle would never have made the news. This is an insult to any mother who lost a baby. She is much better off having held and comforted her child than to have spent the rest of her life wondering “what if.” My aunt was told to abort my cousin because she was going to have hydrocephaly, but Thank GOD she chose life. That cousin is expecting her second child this summer.

    Jaime
    Killeen</blockquote>

     

    I get really, REALLY sick and tired of people who think they are entitled to butt into a private tragedy like this because they are uniquely qualified to decide that “she is much better off”.    Their arrogance is just staggering.

  • ldan

    And the people with *no* clue about medical reality stagger me. The one commenting that a premature infant struggling for breath wasn’t ‘choking’ to death…they were merely ‘suffocating’ and therefore it was less painful than an abortion would have been. The mind boggles.

  • plume-assassine

    A court of law is essentially going to have a woman’s uterus/ovaries removed against her will, on the grounds that she is too “incompetent” to do what is “right” for her body because she has cancer.

     

    ……What the christ is wrong with this country?

  • crowepps

    She sounds delusional to me, “I want to have children, so I don’t want my cancerous uterus removed.  I’m going to healed!”  She isn’t any more delusional than anybody else who doesn’t want to face reality, and there are LOTS of those people out there doing things that endanger their health!

     

    Honestly, if she would rather literally die than have a hysterectomy, that’s her choice.  The State doesn’t have any compelling interest in keeping this one particular person alive that would allow it to force her into surgery.  With the exception of cases involving children, medical providers need to stop running to the courts and the government and asking that they be given the power to impose treatments on patients who don’t want them.  And then add injury to insult by sending those patients a BILL requiring them to pay for what they didn’t want in the first place.

  • plume-assassine

    Right, whether she’s incapable of facing reality or not, my point is just what you wrote: there are lots of other people out there doing things that directly endanger their own life and the government does not “intervene.” There is no reason to force treatment on an adult patient who is competent enough to say that they would prefer to die– and if their morale is really that bad, then the treatment is likely to fail anyway.

     

    I bet if this woman made up a religious excuse for refusing a hysterectomy, everyone would leave her alone. People will respect almost any decision or delusion, as long as it is made under the guise of religion. However, what this really comes down to is respecting bodily autonomy, so one’s reason or excuse shouldn’t matter.

  • arekushieru

    Yeah, ‘she’ is much better off, but what about the baby?  The anti-choicers are oh-so-willing to impose what they think is better for the *fetus* but, after birth, who cares what’s better for the actual *baby*.

  • plume-assassine

    LOL – Sorry, I didn’t read the article in its entirety. She DOES have a religious excuse, i.e. “God cured her.” Delusional? yes. Mentally incompetent? Most likely not. Interesting that a court of law is trying to take away her bodily autonomy and her religious freedom. They need to just leave her alone.