Forced to have a C-Section and arrested if you choose not to
CassandraBurgos83
Posts: 544 Member
in Chit-Chat
http://www.inquisitr.com/1250257/mother-forced-to-have-cesarean-section-and-now-shes-suing/
In what could be termed a violation of the most basic of feminine, or even human, rights, a Staten Island woman was forced, against her will, to undergo a cesarean section, and she is fighting back with a lawsuit filed against the hospital and the physicians.
When Rinat Dray learned that she was pregnant with her third baby, she began looking into her options. Her first two children had been born via c- section, but the recovery period was difficult and prolonged, as is commonly reported with cesarean births. According to RHReality Check, Dray decided to try for a VBAC – Vaginal Birth After Cesarean, after researching her options. She never anticipated the medical tyranny that she encountered when it was time for her baby to be born, nor the injury that she would sustain from the forced cesarean surgery.
Based on current VBAC and cesarean guidelines and her own specific situation, Dray “believed she might be a successful VBAC candidate.” She interviewed various maternity care providers and found a group that seemed supportive of her wishes to avoid another cesarean and that, according to Michael Bast of the law firm Silverstein and Bast, “gave her a positive response without a guarantee, which is a good response. It’s all you could expect.”
Though there are no guarantees with VBAC, as well as any birth, there is plenty of research available that shows that VBAC is overall less risky to mothers and babies than repeat cesarean section. The group ICAN, International Cesarean Awareness Network, points out that the guidelines for VBAC have improved as of 2010 according to ACOG, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:
“The updated guidelines state that VBAC is a safe and reasonable option for most women, including some women with multiple previous cesareans, twins, and unknown uterine scars. ACOG also states that respect for patient autonomy requires that even if an institution does not offer trial of labor after cesarean (TOLAC), a cesarean cannot be forced nor can care be denied if a woman declines a repeat cesarean during labor.”
Forced To Have Cesarean Birth
However, when the much-anticipated day came for Rinat Dray’s baby to be born, those guidelines were ignored. The staff of Staten Island University Hospital began pressuring Dray to have a repeat cesarean when she arrived at the hospital in labor. She refused.
A few hours later, the attending physician informed her that he would no longer examine her unless she consented to a repeat c-section. She again refused. But that didn’t stop the physician, who consulted with the hospital’s legal department and made the decision to violate her will and her right to refuse surgery by the forced cesarean. The following notation is written in Dray’s medical records:
“The woman has decisional capacity. I have decided to override her refusal to have a c-section.”
During the course of performing the cesarean surgery that Dray neither wanted nor consented to, the doctor perforated her bladder. Now the 35-year-old mother of three is suing the hospital, her two physicians, and their practice groups for the forced c-section.
The lawsuit charges medical malpractice for forcing the cesarean against standard of care. ACOG’s own guidelines state: “Restrictive VBAC policies should not be used to force women to undergo a repeat cesarean delivery against their will.”
The Patients’ Bill of Rights for New York State (and other states) clearly asserts that “patients have a right to refuse treatment,” a right which the suit alleges was violated in ignoring and overriding Dray’s refusal for cesarean. This may be the first time that a patient has fought back in court using the Patients’ Bill of Rights.
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Wrongful Forced Cesarean
The concept of “informed consent” was designed to protect patients’ rights, but many mothers and doulas have reported that “informed consent” is largely a myth, rarely seen in hospital birth settings. Be that as it may, it remains the law. In Dray’s case, it was “no consent,” as she was forced into a procedure she refused.
As difficult as it may be to believe, forced cesareans do happen, more frequently than most would believe. As recently as February 2014, a Brazilian mother was forced into a repeat cesarean. Birth Anarchy wrote her story of the police literally showing up at the woman’s home while she was in labor and dragging her to the hospital for the forced cesarean where they cut her baby out of her, even though neither she nor her baby were in any actual danger.
Forced cesareans have happened, and made the news, in Florida, in the UK, in Georgia, and more, though they remain rare. More common are providers who tell women that VBAC is not an option at their facility, thus women often reluctantly submit to repeat cesareans, not forced but coerced.
Increasingly common are threats that amount to blackmail, where hospital staff threaten parents with calling Child Protective Services to investigate or even take their baby from them if they do not submit to a repeat cesarean, or even to vaccines, as was the case recently in Birmingham, Alabama, as reported by The Inquisitr.
Last year, a Florida woman was threatened with arrest and the state-sanctioned kidnapping of her first-born child if she did not report to the hospital for her scheduled c-section.
Forced Into Cesarean
Farah Diaz-Tello, a birth justice activist and staff attorney for National Advocates for Pregnant Women, states that such actions are “not the appropriate use of the child welfare system, which is designed to protect children from neglectful parents, but we have seen cases in which women have been investigated and even had parental rights terminated based on proceedings that started with a refusal of cesarean surgery.”
That reality has birth and women’s rights activists alarmed.
Carla Hartley, founder of the Trust Birth Initiative, says that:
“Mothers do not need to ask anyone’s permission to exercise sovereignty over her own births.”
That should be the way it is, but sadly it is not. The maternal mortality rate is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States, one of only eight nations in the world whose rates are increasing instead of decreasing. A driving force behind that staggering increase is the high c-section rate, which has now reached 1 out of every 3 births in the US. With cesareans sections come increased risk of maternal mortality and morbidity as well as increased harm to the babies. Business Wire recently reported that up to 45 percent of those c=sections may be unnecessary.
The World Health Organization maintains that no hospital should have over a 15 percent cesarean rate. Yet women are increasingly having them. Some women want them; some need them; some believe they need them; others are lied to in order to compel them to submit. Others, like Rinat Dray, are forced into them.
In 1993, a Massachusetts woman won a $1.5 million judgment for her forced c-section.
“There are absolutely human rights and constitutional implications to cases like these, which treat women as separate and unequal to other people,” Diaz Tello told RHReality Check. “All people who are conscious and competent have the right to make decisions about their own health care, even in emergency situations. In this situation, they acknowledged that she [Dray] had the right to make this decision, and unilaterally decided to take it away from her. They didn’t even believe that they needed legal authority to do so.”
During the process of giving birth, Rinat Dray was in a vulnerable position. While trying to cope with labor contractions, she was wheeled to an operating room for a c-section, against her will. She is not a criminal; she is a mother. Yet her baby was forcibly cut out of her body during an invasive cesarean surgery, forced on her despite her refusal to consent.
How is this possible under Constitutional assurances of “life and liberty”? Her life was risked and her liberty was taken from her.
What do you think needs to be the consequences for her doctors and hospital? Are lawsuits like this one the appropriate action? And how can forced cesareans sections be prevented from happening again?
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1250257/mother-forced-to-have-cesarean-section-and-now-shes-suing/#VkxrGMMJQh3604Bj.99
In what could be termed a violation of the most basic of feminine, or even human, rights, a Staten Island woman was forced, against her will, to undergo a cesarean section, and she is fighting back with a lawsuit filed against the hospital and the physicians.
When Rinat Dray learned that she was pregnant with her third baby, she began looking into her options. Her first two children had been born via c- section, but the recovery period was difficult and prolonged, as is commonly reported with cesarean births. According to RHReality Check, Dray decided to try for a VBAC – Vaginal Birth After Cesarean, after researching her options. She never anticipated the medical tyranny that she encountered when it was time for her baby to be born, nor the injury that she would sustain from the forced cesarean surgery.
Based on current VBAC and cesarean guidelines and her own specific situation, Dray “believed she might be a successful VBAC candidate.” She interviewed various maternity care providers and found a group that seemed supportive of her wishes to avoid another cesarean and that, according to Michael Bast of the law firm Silverstein and Bast, “gave her a positive response without a guarantee, which is a good response. It’s all you could expect.”
Though there are no guarantees with VBAC, as well as any birth, there is plenty of research available that shows that VBAC is overall less risky to mothers and babies than repeat cesarean section. The group ICAN, International Cesarean Awareness Network, points out that the guidelines for VBAC have improved as of 2010 according to ACOG, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:
“The updated guidelines state that VBAC is a safe and reasonable option for most women, including some women with multiple previous cesareans, twins, and unknown uterine scars. ACOG also states that respect for patient autonomy requires that even if an institution does not offer trial of labor after cesarean (TOLAC), a cesarean cannot be forced nor can care be denied if a woman declines a repeat cesarean during labor.”
Forced To Have Cesarean Birth
However, when the much-anticipated day came for Rinat Dray’s baby to be born, those guidelines were ignored. The staff of Staten Island University Hospital began pressuring Dray to have a repeat cesarean when she arrived at the hospital in labor. She refused.
A few hours later, the attending physician informed her that he would no longer examine her unless she consented to a repeat c-section. She again refused. But that didn’t stop the physician, who consulted with the hospital’s legal department and made the decision to violate her will and her right to refuse surgery by the forced cesarean. The following notation is written in Dray’s medical records:
“The woman has decisional capacity. I have decided to override her refusal to have a c-section.”
During the course of performing the cesarean surgery that Dray neither wanted nor consented to, the doctor perforated her bladder. Now the 35-year-old mother of three is suing the hospital, her two physicians, and their practice groups for the forced c-section.
The lawsuit charges medical malpractice for forcing the cesarean against standard of care. ACOG’s own guidelines state: “Restrictive VBAC policies should not be used to force women to undergo a repeat cesarean delivery against their will.”
The Patients’ Bill of Rights for New York State (and other states) clearly asserts that “patients have a right to refuse treatment,” a right which the suit alleges was violated in ignoring and overriding Dray’s refusal for cesarean. This may be the first time that a patient has fought back in court using the Patients’ Bill of Rights.
ADVERTISEMENT
Wrongful Forced Cesarean
The concept of “informed consent” was designed to protect patients’ rights, but many mothers and doulas have reported that “informed consent” is largely a myth, rarely seen in hospital birth settings. Be that as it may, it remains the law. In Dray’s case, it was “no consent,” as she was forced into a procedure she refused.
As difficult as it may be to believe, forced cesareans do happen, more frequently than most would believe. As recently as February 2014, a Brazilian mother was forced into a repeat cesarean. Birth Anarchy wrote her story of the police literally showing up at the woman’s home while she was in labor and dragging her to the hospital for the forced cesarean where they cut her baby out of her, even though neither she nor her baby were in any actual danger.
Forced cesareans have happened, and made the news, in Florida, in the UK, in Georgia, and more, though they remain rare. More common are providers who tell women that VBAC is not an option at their facility, thus women often reluctantly submit to repeat cesareans, not forced but coerced.
Increasingly common are threats that amount to blackmail, where hospital staff threaten parents with calling Child Protective Services to investigate or even take their baby from them if they do not submit to a repeat cesarean, or even to vaccines, as was the case recently in Birmingham, Alabama, as reported by The Inquisitr.
Last year, a Florida woman was threatened with arrest and the state-sanctioned kidnapping of her first-born child if she did not report to the hospital for her scheduled c-section.
Forced Into Cesarean
Farah Diaz-Tello, a birth justice activist and staff attorney for National Advocates for Pregnant Women, states that such actions are “not the appropriate use of the child welfare system, which is designed to protect children from neglectful parents, but we have seen cases in which women have been investigated and even had parental rights terminated based on proceedings that started with a refusal of cesarean surgery.”
That reality has birth and women’s rights activists alarmed.
Carla Hartley, founder of the Trust Birth Initiative, says that:
“Mothers do not need to ask anyone’s permission to exercise sovereignty over her own births.”
That should be the way it is, but sadly it is not. The maternal mortality rate is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States, one of only eight nations in the world whose rates are increasing instead of decreasing. A driving force behind that staggering increase is the high c-section rate, which has now reached 1 out of every 3 births in the US. With cesareans sections come increased risk of maternal mortality and morbidity as well as increased harm to the babies. Business Wire recently reported that up to 45 percent of those c=sections may be unnecessary.
The World Health Organization maintains that no hospital should have over a 15 percent cesarean rate. Yet women are increasingly having them. Some women want them; some need them; some believe they need them; others are lied to in order to compel them to submit. Others, like Rinat Dray, are forced into them.
In 1993, a Massachusetts woman won a $1.5 million judgment for her forced c-section.
“There are absolutely human rights and constitutional implications to cases like these, which treat women as separate and unequal to other people,” Diaz Tello told RHReality Check. “All people who are conscious and competent have the right to make decisions about their own health care, even in emergency situations. In this situation, they acknowledged that she [Dray] had the right to make this decision, and unilaterally decided to take it away from her. They didn’t even believe that they needed legal authority to do so.”
During the process of giving birth, Rinat Dray was in a vulnerable position. While trying to cope with labor contractions, she was wheeled to an operating room for a c-section, against her will. She is not a criminal; she is a mother. Yet her baby was forcibly cut out of her body during an invasive cesarean surgery, forced on her despite her refusal to consent.
How is this possible under Constitutional assurances of “life and liberty”? Her life was risked and her liberty was taken from her.
What do you think needs to be the consequences for her doctors and hospital? Are lawsuits like this one the appropriate action? And how can forced cesareans sections be prevented from happening again?
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1250257/mother-forced-to-have-cesarean-section-and-now-shes-suing/#VkxrGMMJQh3604Bj.99
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Replies
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Yes, this is long,but it really bothers me that these situations happen more often then not. I couldn't imaginee someone taking away my right as a mother of having a natural child birth .0
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Hopefully more people will become more aware of their rights so these situations do not happen anymore.0
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That hospital sounds like it's full of quacks even if they didn't force her to do this, how hard is it to not realize you're near a bladder? This is more proof that medical schools don't teach doctors the useful things they did 60 years ago, now they teach them the fast and easy way to milk insurance companies for cash. It's all about the money. I bet they get way more money for the c-section too.0
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Just a couple of points for you:
1. A 3rd repeat c/s or labor carries a risk of uterine rupture. Granted, the risk is low, but the outcome is catastrophic, so I can see why an OB would hesitate to allow a parturient to labor under such circumstances.
2. The OB consulted with an attorney to decide how to proceed.
3. If Mrs Dray didn't want a c/s, why not deliver at home? Because she is high risk? Then accept that she is high risk and runs a higher risk of c/s.
4. C/s cause scar tissue to form. 2 c/s cause more scar tissue to form. A bladder injury (or any injury) is more common during a 3rd c/s and says nothing about a clinician's skills.
5. I am a person who has had a c/s and a VBAC. I am all for patients rights but for the love of Pete, don't go to a hospital if you want your birth plan followed to a T. Have your baby at home; if and when things go wrong call 911. Easy peasy, no attorneys needed.0 -
This angers me a ridiculous amount.
It was bad enough I've been hearing about doctors in my area trying to convince women to have c-sections for bogus reasons when there was no need, other than to fit their own schedule, because a woman going into labor and delivering naturally is apparently too inconvenient for them.
This though. This makes me rage. I hope she bankrupts that doctor.0 -
Before condemning the hospital I would have to see the ekg of the child during labor, the contraction monitor reports etc. There's way more to this than this story allows to be told. Since hospitals are under insurance the medical record, not for previous births but the labor at present would have to show that every other option was employed before proceeding to a c-section. I had a c-section, so I know that everything has to be done first and there has to Be documented evidence that the baby or mother was not tolerating contractions etc. I had everything done to me medically for 37 hours and was begging for a c-section by 34 hours but they wouldn't do it until they tried everything first. Also, before you're admitted you sign a consent for treatment and for doctors to do whatever they feel necessary to get that baby out safely, she had to sign this because it's law therefore, she consented even before being admitted to any treatment including a c-section. She may not have a leg to stand on legally. I also use to be the records person getting signatures and explaining the process and legal standings of these said documents.0
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That said, I really hope for the hospitals sake they did try everything and they only did what was necessary. If not, it's a shame and I hope they get the full force of the law. I want one more child and I am praying for a vbac but I won't let my own dream of that interfere with the well fare of my child. If it's necessary and needs to be done so be it, if not.... then I will be doing a vbac.0
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