Angela Carder, dying of cancer, was forced into C-section in fetal rights case - The Washington Post
peter.suber's bookmarks 2022-08-21
Summary:
"In June 1987, Angela Carder was 26 weeks pregnant and dying of cancer. Sedated and on a ventilator, she was fading so fast that no one could ask her what she wanted to do about the fetus inside her.
So lawyers for George Washington University Medical Center put the question to a D.C. Superior Court judge. He ordered an emergency Caesarean section over the objections of her family and doctors, who believed she would not have wanted it. The baby died two hours after the operation; Carder, 27, died two days later.
In 1990, the District’s highest court found that the judge should not have ordered the surgery because there was insufficient evidence Carder wanted it. A pregnant woman, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in a precedent-setting decision, had a virtually unlimited right to decide the course of medical treatment for herself and her fetus...."