Woman loses custody of child for five years for refusing C-section

Article can be found here.

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Jersey woman has lost custody of her child for the past five years for refusing to sign a consent form permitting a C-section during her child’s birth, according to an exclusive report published by Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper.
 
The Daily Mail reports that the woman, whose initials are given as VM, was accused of child abuse by staff of St. Barnabas Hospital of New Jersey for refusing to sign the document, despite the fact that VM agreed to submit to the operation if it later became necessary.

Although VM’s judgment turned out to be correct, and she gave birth naturally through her birth canal to a healthy baby child, her child was taken away by authorities.

After years of judicial proceedings, in which the trial judge and an appellate court upheld the decision to deprive VM of her child, she finally received a favorable ruling on a second appeal. The case was remanded to the lower court judge, who still must issue a revised ruling.  VM’s husband, whose initials are BG, has also been deprived of custody.

In overturning the lower court ruling, the New Jersey Superior Court reportedly stated, “Termination [of parental rights] is among the most extraordinary remedies that can be exercised by a court. We must insist that the remedy be reserved for those instances where the state meets the extraordinary burden imposed by the law.”

It adds: “That burden has not been met here.”

Wow. So much to say on this one. In a country that allows the unborn child to be murdered up until the moment of birth, under the guise of "a woman's right to choose" and "my body, my choice", this is a disgusting display of hypocrisy. So it's not okay to have a natural birth, if a doctor considers it dangerous, even though his true and only concern is a malpractice suit, and his insurance company dropping him. But killing the child is fine if the parents don't want it.

Having a repeat cesarean has a greater risk of mortality and morbidity than the minute chances of uterine rupture. If there is a dead or injured mom or baby, traditionally, courts have ruled in favor of physicians if they performed a c-section, and against them if they instead cautiously observed and waited. So in spite of the fact that performing the surgery leads to more harm done than not performing the surgery, the first is considered "doing everything in their power to save the baby/mother", and therefore usually is ruled in the physician's favor. The health of mother and baby is not the main concern - the doctor's medical license is. Erring on the side of caution to them means performing an almost always unnecessary cesarean, whereas erring on the side of caution regarding the mother/child would be to observe and wait.

This is not an isolated, rare case. I have blogged on court-ordered cesareans before. There was a case like that in Arizona a little over one year ago, and another one of a mother whose baby was taken at birth after she refused to sign the consent form for the surgery (her baby was eventually returned to her - I was unable to retrieve the news article on that). It goes back to government officials thinking that they know better what is in the best interest of our own children, even though they would never have a fraction of the love that normal parents feel for their children toward those same children. Are there parents who hate and abuse their children? Certainly. However, they are not the kind who fight tooth and nail to protect their unborn child from the risks of unnecessary surgery. They are more likely the kind who will get an abortion, which of course, is not only legal, but funded by the government. 

Sadly, this further proves my point that the hospital is the worst place to have a baby. Is it sometimes necessary to transfer to the hospital, or even to have a cesarean? Certainly, but those life-or-death cases are very, very rare. Do you think all elderly people should live at a hospital in case they suffer a heart attack? That would be silly. Yet, labor offers many more warning signs of things turning in an undesired direction, so there is time to transfer if necessary. It's not like at the hospital, the surgical team is just standing by every laboring woman's bedside, scrubbed clean and suited up for surgery, with the OR clean and available, and the team of nurses ready and waiting, just in case something should go wrong. If there is a need to transfer, the midwife usually calls when the parents are getting in the car and leaving home, and likely they will arrive at the hospital before the surgeon and OR are even ready for them. Cases like this, however, will make parents LESS likely to transfer, worsening the situation if there is a true medical emergency. Going to the hospital is so dangerous, it becomes a last ditch, desperate effort when pretty much all other options have been exhausted. It ought not be like that. Women should make the choice to birth at home because of preference, not because going to the hospital is such a dangerous option.

Click here to read about another case of a newborn baby being stolen from the parents by government officials at the hospital.

This post is not about the question of home vs. hospital birth. It is about government overstepping their bounds and abusing their power to prove a point, intimidate, coerce, harass, and injure (both physically, and emotionally). 

What are your thoughts on this?

The dangers of repeat Cesarean deliveries

One of my biggest passions/obsessions is to advocate for natural birth, and the avoidance of unnecessary C-sections. Sadly, the rates of successfully achieving a natural delivery after a Cesarean (VBAC) have dropped into the single digits in recent years, while rates of surgical deliveries have now reached an all-time high of 1 in 3 births nationwide (with some cities/states/hospitals having rates as high as 70%).

These two factors combined mean that there are many ladies who will end up with a repeat Cesarean for no other reason than that she had one before. What many women may not realize fully is how the risks and dangers associated with that rise dramatically with each additional C-section.

For anyone interested in having a large family, or allowing God to determine the size of their family, this can be a serious health threat. So much so, that many OBs will strongly urge/pressure a lady having her third (or more) C-section to consent to having tubal ligation during the delivery, and medically speaking, I can certainly see their point. The mistake was to perform what was most likely an unnecessary surgery to begin with. I can right now think of probably a dozen or more ladies who all have three children after three C-sections, and who no longer can have kids although they would have loved to have more. It is such a sad state to be in.

I found the following article very shocking, but also informative.


Dangerous delivery shows peril of multiple C-sections

By Alex Friedman

For The Inquirer

The worst surgical case of my residency came when we delivered my patient's baby by cesarean - her ninth cesarean birth.

The baby came out fine, but for the mother we suspected one of most feared complications in obstetrics - that her placenta had burrowed deep into the muscle of the uterus.

To get oxygen and nutrients to the fetus, the placenta needs to attach just a few millimeters deep into the uterus. We worried that hers had gone much farther and might eat through the entire thickness of the uterus, keeping it from shrinking back to its normal size after delivery and causing a massive hemorrhage.

We gave a gentle tug on the umbilical cord. Usually the placenta peels off with such gentle pulling, but hers remained stuck - an ominous sign.

The case points out a fundamental truth about surgical delivery: a first cesarean for most women leads to a cesarean with every pregnancy. And while a first section is quick, easy to perform, and rarely complicated, each repeat surgery carries greater risk.

More and more women are finding themselves on the C-section path. Almost one in three babies was delivered by cesarean in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, an increase of more than 50 percent from a decade earlier.

At the same time, it's becoming harder for mothers to avoid repeat surgery. The number of vaginal births after a C-section fell by two-thirds, to fewer than 10 percent, over the same time period. This year, the National Institutes of Health estimated that since 1996, one-third of hospitals and one-half of doctors who offered vaginal births after a C-section no longer do so.

"There can be tremendous morbidity after three or four or five prior cesarean deliveries," said Gary Cunningham, an OB-GYN professor and former department chair at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, who chaired the NIH panel.

"Women need to be counseled appropriately and accurately so that they can make an informed decision," Cunningham said. "But this doesn't do much good if she cannot find an obstetrician or hospital that will allow a trial of labor."

Repeat C-sections pose more risk than a first section for many reasons. One factor concerns anatomy. When a doctor performs a first cesarean, the layers of tissue look and feel very different from each other. These visual cues and textures guide the surgeon, indicating exactly where to cut.

The surgery is simple: the surgeon cuts, spreads, and pokes, layer by layer, until reaching the baby. The surgeon first opens the skin a few centimeters above the pubic bone. The fat underneath easily gives way until the connecting fascia is reached. The tough, fibrous fascia, which holds the intestines in the abdomen, is cut at the midline and opened in either direction. The beefy abdominal muscles beneath are spread.

Finally, the glossy peritoneum, the last layer of the abdomen, is entered, and only the uterus lies between the doctor and the baby. In a term patient, the maroon, swollen uterus, flanked by finger-size veins, fills almost the whole abdomen, pushing the intestines up. The surgeon moves the bladder out of the way, cuts the lower uterus open, and is met by a baby's foot, face, elbow, or behind, depending on how the baby is positioned.

The surgeon loses the advantage of good anatomy after the first section. The tissue undergoes scarring, toughens, and blends together as it heals. The variations in color and texture disappear. The intestines and bowel sometimes stick to the healing wound, putting them in harm's way the next time surgery is performed.

These changes increase the chances of an unexpected injury. "Her belly was cement," we'd say to one another during residency after a tough section.

A study from 2006 published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology compared C-section complications in more than 30,000 patients. Risks of requiring a large blood transfusion, incurring a bladder injury, needing to be on a ventilator, and ending up in intensive care all increased significantly with the number of sections after the first.

The study also showed greater risk for my patient's complication. Scarring on the inside of the uterus after a cesarean causes the placenta to attach abnormally in future pregnancies. During a first section, the risk of this complication was less than 1 in 400. After a sixth section, the risk ballooned to more than 1 in 15.

So we knew the risks my patient faced from her ninth cesarean and prepared the best we could. We matched extra blood, placed additional IV lines, and arranged for expert surgeons to back us up.

But with my patient's placenta stuck and bleeding, only one option remained: removing the entire uterus with the placenta still attached. Because the pregnant uterus is large, swollen, and filled with blood, a hysterectomy after a delivery is very dangerous and performed only as a last resort.

By the time we finished the surgery, blood covered the floor. Blood filled suction buckets, and saturated our sterile gowns and drapes. Blood-soaked sponges piled up in the corner.

My patient lost three times the entire blood volume of a normal person, sixteen liters in all. Only a massive transfusion kept her alive. Anesthesiologists pumped in 51 units of red blood cells and seven six-packs of platelets.

Vessels deep in her pelvis refused to stop bleeding, and instead of closing her, we packed her abdomen with surgical towels, hoping the pressure would stanch the slow, steady flow. She left the operating room and headed to the intensive-care unit with her abdomen still open.

After a reoperation the following morning and days in the ICU, she stabilized and slowly recovered.

With a first cesarean, the up-front costs - a few more days in the hospital, a longer recovery - may seem reasonable. Only in retrospect can the true costs become apparent.

Abortion Practitioner Loses Medical License for Killing Wrong Twin in Failed Abortion

As found on LifeNews:

Miami, FL (LifeNews.com) -- A Florida-based abortion practitioner lost his medical license this weekend after the state medical board evaluated his license. Matthew Kachinas was supposed to do an abortion on one of the twin babies who had Down syndrome but wound up killing the other baby in the failed abortion.

Kachinas injected a chemical to kill the baby in the abortion, but the injection ultimately killed the healthy unborn child.

The Florida Board of Medicine met over the weekend, according to the Miami Herald, and revoked Kachinas' license for that and other cases that have come to its attention where Kachinas engaged in shoddy medicine.

Immediately after the hearing, Kachinas said he would kill himself and was hospitalized at a local mental health facility out of concerns of his well-being, the newspaper reported.

Kachinas was one of the few abortion practitioners in Florida to engage in second-trimester abortions or the practice known as selective reduction, whereby one or more unborn children are killed when a pregnancy involves more than one baby.

The pregnancy in question involved unborn children conceived through in-vitro fertilization. Records show that after the "wrong" baby was killed in the first abortion, a second abortion was done to kill the disabled unborn child as well. The babies were 15 weeks along at the time of the abortion.

The twin who was considered healthy was a girl while the twin diagnosed as having Down syndrome, was a boy.

[...]

There are so many things wrong with this it's hard to say where to start.

1) The hypocrisy of the Florida Board of Medicine to revoke a doctor's license for killing a "healthy" child, but for not even frowning upon the intentional killing of a "disabled" child.

2) What does a "Board of Medicine" have to do with overseeing intentionally taking human life? Isn't medicine about healing people, rather than eugenics and "ethnic cleansing"?

3) The gall of the parents. The article does not say whether or not they still went through with aborting the disabled twin even after the death of the healthy child, but my guess would be they did, since they never wanted him to begin with. To not even be ashamed to come forward with a story like that - "We wanted him to kill our son, but instead he killed our daughter, so now we want to press charges". Chances are, they are trying to recover the money they spent on IVF so they can afford to pervert nature again in the future.

4) This story once again proves my opinion that people who use IVF are obsessed with having a perfect token child to add to their perfectly planned out life, without any regard to the moral implications. Anyone who would intentionally kill most their children just so they can maybe have one, rather than to seek God's blessing in this area, is selfish and unfit to be a parent. This is proven by the fact that these people in cold blood were going to "reduce" their not-so-perfect offspring. This all reminds me of the story I blogged about here (an update on which is soon to come).

5) This was not the first time the doctor "messed up". My guess is that maybe it wasn't accidental. Maybe someone who kills little babies for a living enjoys it so much that sometimes he likes to kill even the ones who were supposed to "make" it.

6) Why does Sarasota Memorial Hospital carry out second trimester abortions for "medical" reasons? Isn't a hospital there to help people? It's amazing how they think size determines whether or not someone is a human being.

This story reminded me of an unrelated case I read about online of a 19-year old girl with Down Syndrome who died following what was likely an illegal, forced late-term abortion at George Tiller's abortion clinic. You can read about this very sad case here.

God help those mothers who have made their womb the most dangerous place in the world for their child to be in. One cannot pervert nature much more than that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited to add: I received a comment from someone preferring not to have their comment published who pointed out to me that the article does, in fact, make mention of the fact that the parents ultimately aborted the second baby as well.

"Records show that after the "wrong" baby was killed in the first abortion, a second abortion was done to kill the disabled unborn child as well. The babies were 15 weeks along at the time of the abortion."

The Octuplet Controversy

So much has been discussed about this subject already, I really did not want to add to the whole hoopla. I think it was 100% wrong and selfish of a single mother on welfare to get pregnant, and to do so though IVF (which kills dozens of babies for every living one).

But I would like to set the record straight on some things the media has been portraying negatively:

It was not wrong for someone with 6 kids to want to have more. Of course, there is a big difference between a married mom of 6 becoming pregnant by her husband and a single woman on welfare using IVF for the 6th time. Still, the news media acts as if anyone with 6 children must be crazy for wanting another baby.

I do not think that it is impossible to give enough love and attention to 14 children. That is, if they are conceived and born under normal circumstances, i.e. children that are spaced naturally. Most parents who have 14 children will have some who are about to leave the home or have already left. They are much less needy than a newborn (let alone eight newborns). Furthermore, many large families homeschool, and practically all of them have a stay-at-home mom. A homeschooled child in a large family gets much more individual, one-on-one attention than a child who only has one sibling but goes to school gets. True, the kid in the large family has to share his parents with his siblings 24/7, but kids in small families who are in school have to share their teacher (not even a parent) for the majority of their awake time with about 25 other kids (who are not even their siblings).

"Octo-Mom" has 10 children under the age of 2, something that is not normally possible, hence she will not be able to care for them as God and nature had intended. Hopefully, there will be people to volunteer and help her out, since the mistakes have already been made and the effort now should be to make the best out of the situation.

I believe that with God's blessing and hard work, anyone can support any size family that God gives them. Again, the emphasis here is children that are given by God, rather than artificially conceived. Stealing from God sounds like a sure way for parents to forfeit the blessings of God.

I do not think that this mom should have "reduced" the pregnancy, i.e. selectively aborted some of her babies in the womb. The mistake was using IVF in the first place, let alone with 6 babies (she said 2 of the eggs split, hence 8 babies).

Important safety recall

Infants Strangled to Death in Simplicity Bassinets: CPSC Urges Consumers To Stop Using Simplicity 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 Convertible “Close-Sleeper” Models

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is urging parents and caregivers to stop using convertible “close-sleeper/bedside sleeper” bassinets manufactured by Simplicity Inc., of Reading, Pa. CPSC has learned that on August 21, 2008, a 5-month-old girl from Shawnee, Kan. was strangled to death when she became entrapped between the bassinet’s metal bars. This is the second strangulation death CPSC has learned of in the close-sleeper bassinets. On September 29, 2007, a 4-month-old girl from Noel, Mo. became entrapped in the metal bars of the bassinet and died.

CPSC is issuing this safety alert because SFCA Inc., the company which purchased all of Simplicity Inc.’s assets at public auction in April 2008, has refused to cooperate with the government and recall the products. SFCA maintains that it is not responsible for products previously manufactured by Simplicity Inc.

The Simplicity 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible bassinets contain metal bars spaced farther apart than 2 3/8 inches, which is the maximum distance allowed under the federal crib safety standard. The metal bars are covered by an adjustable fabric flap which is attached by velcro. The fabric is folded down when the bassinet is converted into a bed-side co-sleeping position. If the velcro is not properly re-secured when the flap is adjusted, an infant can slip through the opening and become entrapped in the metal bars and suffocate. This warning does not cover bassinets produced in recent months that have fabric permanently attached over the lower bar.

Due to the serious hazard these bassinets pose to babies, CPSC urges all consumers to share this safety warning with day care centers, consignment stores, family and friends to ensure that no child is placed to sleep in a Simplicity convertible bassinet covered by this warning.

The Commission voted, using its new authorities in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, to release this warning upon making a finding that the health and safety of the public require immediate notice.

Mormonism, FLSD, and polygamy

Certainly, everyone out there has been reading or hearing about the recent raid on an FLDS ranch in Texas. Hundreds of children were removed after a supposed call to a family violence shelter, which now some claim was really just an anonymous outsider trying to get the police involved.

All these news articles are careful to draw a distinction between the LDS and the FLDS, the latter being the fundamental branch that separated from the LDS long ago. The two are not affiliated at all. Or so they say.

The fact of the matter is that the FLDS simply continues to believe the exact teachings of the founding fathers of Mormonism, while the LDS is the "liberal" branch who (although likewise claiming to follow Joseph Smith et al.) pick and choose which beliefs they still accept and which they don't practice any more in order to comply with U.S. law. But even the LDS believes that they will be living much like the FLDS members do now once they enter eternity.

Here is an interesting YouTube video explaining the strange doctrines underlying Mormonism:




Of course, the practice of polygamy is entirely unbiblical. Yet, I have heard people who call themselves Christians wonder whether God condoned it in the Old Testament, or whether maybe it is a biblical concept. I have even heard arguments in favor of polygamy, such as men having to really make an effort to prove they are good husbands, since there will be a shortage of women if one guy can just swoop up on a half dozen or more women, leaving the next guy empty-handed. I guess that holds true about as long as they are "dating", but then it seems the women are stuck having to compete for the affections of one man. Better not burn the dinner or have a bad day, honey! Everyone knows that a single guy is much more attentive to the whims of his future wife than that same guy will be once he is married. How much more must that be true when the guy gets to pick who to spend the evening with every night!

Of course, the Bible holds the answer when it says:

Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mar 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
Mar 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.


God only gave Adam one wife, Eve. I think even Mormons would have a hard time arguing that God intended for Adam to later marry one of his own daughters, which would have been his only way of getting more wives. Just because the Bible records many men who had multiple wives does not mean that God condoned that practice. Those same men also were all liars, but does that mean that lying is not a sin?

People in today's society have multiple wives, only they have them one after the other as opposed to at the same time. I have personally known people that were on there 8th marriage. Many others commit fornication and later adultery, because these days you don't "have" to marry the woman any more. I guess back in the times of the OT the only legal and socially accepted way to have relations with multiple women was by marrying them since adultery and prostitution were punished harshly. I find just as disgusting as a guy with multiple wives the man who leaves his wife of many years (who is often also the mother of his children) and swaps her for another woman. Of course, that type of guy will eventually get bored again and move on from her as well. Some people are just never content and always want something newer and better, and sadly, that includes their spouse. At least the guy with the half dozen wives is still financially supporting all of them, rather than leaving their wife high and dry after she spent her life raising his kids. Again, both is revolting and disgusting, but it is amazing how polygamy is so taboo (as it should be) while divorce, remarriage, adultery and fornication are all legal and carry no penalty whatsoever.

Mormonism is NOT a Christian religion. It is a CULT.