Only In Florida, I Hope

From the state that seems to like to invade one privacy and make personal decisions by court order there comes a new battle. Do you remember the Terri Schiavo case where the state stepped in to stop her wish not to "kept alive on a machine." Well they have done it again, this time ordering a mother to bed rest in a hospital because she might have a miscarriage!

The New York Times reported…

Is Refusing Bed Rest a Crime?
By LISA BELKIN

Arguments are under way today in the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee, Fla., in the case of Samantha Burton, who was confined to her bed by a judge earlier this year because she was at risk for a miscarriage.

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.

The ACLU has now appealed the case to a higher court and in their brief they say that they want “to protecting the constitutional rights of privacy and reproductive choice.” The brief goes on to state,

Moreover, to ignore this fundamental constitutional distinction between the State interest in protecting fetal life and its interest in the protecting the lives and health of people is to risk virtually unfettered intrusion into the lives of pregnant women.

The right to have control over one’s body is, I believe, sacrosanct. I do not believe that the government has the right to tell me what I can or cannot do to my body. I believe what the ACLU says in their brief is true…

“Thus, the overwhelming weight of federal and Florida precedent required the circuit court to apply the strictest level of constitutional scrutiny by giving full weight to Ms. Burton’s fundamental rights of liberty, bodily integrity, and medical autonomy and requiring the State to carry its heavy burden of demonstrating an overwhelming interest in fetal health that justified the extreme liberty deprivation in this case.