by Leah Levensailor
A cesarean section is a brutal way for doctors to treat pregnant people like incubators while only thinking about the outcome of the baby, not the carrier. They are being overused all over the country for a multitude of reasons from anti-abortion care to making sure the hospital doesn’t get sued. Never should a carrier have to endure such a horrific procedure just because the hospital wants the bed back. C-sections are dangerous to carriers as well as babies and should only be used when deemed absolutely necessary.
Transcript
Cesarean Sections have been used as an alternative birthing practice for centuries, typically as a last stitch effort to save the carrier and baby. C-sections are major abdominal surgery with months of recovery. C-sections also complicate future births with some not being able to give birth vaginally and others having unexplained stillborns after having a c-section.
Maternal morbidity is five times more likely with c-sections than with vaginal births. The World Health Organization considers a c-section rate of 10-15% of total births to be ‘ideal’, but the United States now has a nationwide c-section rate of 32.4%. The United States has a maternal mortality rate of 23.8 deaths per 100,000 births which is a terrifying statistic laid next to the UK’s 6.5 deaths, France’s 8.7, and Canada’s 8.6. America prides itself as being one of the best countries in the world but with statistics like that it is hard to see why.
I’d like to bring attention to Lizelle Gonzalez, a woman from Texas who sued the prosecutor’s office after being falsely imprisoned for murder for getting an abortion. However, Gonzalez did not in fact get an abortion, she was denied by the hospital and was given a c-section instead to deliver the stillborn fetus, instead of a D&E. The hospital then reported her to the authorities. What kind of world do we live in where seeking medical treatment can get you turned into the police by those you were seeking help from? She was put through an unnecessary horrific procedure when all she needed was a simple abortion.
Another example of legal action being taken was the District of Columbia Appellate Court In re A.C. which dealt with the death of a mother and baby because of a forced c-section. Angela Carder was 26 weeks along in her pregnancy when her cancer recurred. She had been in remission since before getting pregnant. Her doctors believed she was terminal and that her baby was far enough along that it was viable, however she heavily disputed this. The surgery would have also posed great risk for Angela and the doctors knew this. Angela was sedated and couldn’t speak because she had a tube in her throat, but her family was advocating for her telling the doctors they did not want the c-section. The hospital, George Washington University Hospital in Washington D.C., acquired a court order to do the procedure to protect itself from liability. Both Angela and the baby died as a result of the surgery. The family took to the appeals court which ruled that the rights of the fetus did not outway the rights of the carrier. The court ruled in almost all cases the will of the patient outway the states want to protect the fetus.
So why are these horrific practices being done to women with virtually no medical necessity? To prevent hospital liability and legal action being taken in conservative states where even having a stillborn baby could be considered murder. In the deep south especially where abortion bans have skyrocketed, doctors left and right are being brought to courts for murder for performing abortions or any sort of abortion care even if it was life saving for the carrier.
Forcing c-sections has been an issue not just in abortion cases. On a more personal note, my aunt Cyndi had an experience with her most recent baby that she graciously shared with me. I was able to interview her to get a full understanding of her traumatic forced c-section. Cyndi had 2 children already Cyndi was in labor for almost a full day and little progress was being made. During the day she had a conversation with a midwife that calmed her nerves and the midwife said everything is going to be fine and we were just going to let her rest and in the morning she would have made progress to have a vaginal birth. But then the night shift came in and everything changed. These are the highlights of our conversation.
“I don’t want a c section unless you know for sure I need a c section and she was just like ‘well, like your baby could end up in the NICU or worse if we do nothing.’ I was getting really frustrated because like I wasn’t feeling heard at all umm in like what my body needed which was to rest. I hadn’t slept at that point in like 24 hours.”
“I then asked for an OB I was like can I get like a second opinion, because what I really couldn’t get past was like the drastic difference between when the nurse and my midwife from the day shift left and when she walked into the room.”
It was at that point the OB told Cyndi she still had time to wait and see if the baby was going to come on her own or if they needed to intervene. The night shift midwife was still adamant about pushing the c section and would not hear any other option.
“I kept trying to explain to her I’m not like trying to prove that I’m right, I’m like trying not to get a serious massive surgery that is going to take me out for several years. Like I have already had this done, I do not want that again if I don’t need to have it. I have two kids at home I have to take care of.”
“And so I ended up telling them that like I am not consenting to the c-section like I don’t consent to this, I don’t want this but like you are telling me I don’t have any other option because you’re telling me that my baby is going to die. So like I don’t have a choice, I have to agree I can’t put my baby like I can’t gamble on my baby’s life, but I’m also not consenting to this either. And they were like ‘well you have to consent or we can’t do the surgery. So they like forced me into consenting which also felt like just hugely violating.”
Cyndi did end up reluctantly agreeing to have the c-section because she was being forced with threats of her baby dying. When in reality Chloe was perfectly fine. She passed all of her newborn tests with flying colors and she was a happy healthy baby.
“The c-section was horrible, like horrible. I felt like I was dying. I am aware of my c-section every single day. It hurts me every single day and I knew that was going to happen because I’ve gone through this before. This is the first conversation I’ve had about my c-section without crying and you know Chloe is 15 months old. I just really felt like the only patient that was there was the baby and not mom as well.”
Stories like these are going untold all around the country. Doctors are using c-sections as a quick and easy way to avoid any liability or ‘bad outcomes’, in no way thinking about the emotional and physical damage being done to the carriers. C-sections are not an easy fix and the choice to have a c section should be exactly that, a choice. They are trying to take away the fundamental value of my body, my choice and this is just another example of it. There should be no instance where a carrier feels backed into a corner and forced to have major unneeded surgery just because the hospital didn’t want to deal with the risks. C-sections should be used as a last resort to save both carrier and baby, and it should never be against the will of the carrier.
References
“Cesarean Section – A Brief History: Part 1.” n.d. National Library of Medicine. Accessed November 18, 2024. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part1.html .
“C-sections in the U.S.: Why the rate increased, again.” 2024. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2024/04/29/c-section-rate-high-why-risks.
Hoyert, Donna L. 2022. “Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2020.” CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2020/maternal-mortality-rates-2020.htm.
Resnick, Sofia, Marty Schladen, Anna Kaminski, and Elaine Povich. 2024. “Anti-abortion researchers back riskier procedures when pregnancy termination is needed, experts say • Alabama Reflector.” Alabama Reflector. https://alabamareflector.com/2024/07/19/anti-abortion-researchers-back-riskier-procedures-when-pregnancy-termination-is-needed-experts-say/.
“Short-term and long-term effects of caesarean section on the health of women and children.” 2018. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30322585/.
Tuma, Mary. 2024. “Fearing Legal Threats, Doctors Are Performing C-Sections in Lieu of Abortions.” The Nation. http://thenation.com/article/society/c-sections-abortions-terrifying-new-reality/.
Baer, Judith A.. Historical and Multicultural Encyclopedia of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/smith/detail.action?docID=3000917.
Created from smith on 2024-11-09 19:42:34.
(573 A.2 1235, 1990)
