Editing Caesarean section (section)

===Court cases===
''[[In re A.C.]]'', 573 [[Atlantic Reporter|A.2d]] 1235 (1990), was a [[District of Columbia Court of Appeals]] case. It was the first American appellate court case decided against a forced Caesarean section, although the decision was issued after the fatal procedure was performed.<ref name=":Carder2">{{Cite journal|last=Feitshans|first=Ilise|year=1995|title=Legislating to Preserve Women's Autonomy during Pregnancy|journal=Medicine and Law|volume=14|issue=5–6 |pages=397–412|pmid=8868499 |via=HeinOnline}}</ref> Physicians performed a Caesarean section upon patient Angela Carder (née Stoner) without informed consent in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of her baby.<ref name="Carder:0">{{Cite journal|last=Bourke|first=Leon|year=1990|title=In re A.C.|journal=Issues in Law & Medicine|volume=6|pages=299–305|via=EBSCOhost}}</ref>  The case stands as a landmark in United States [[case law]] establishing the [[pregnant patients' rights in the United States|rights]] of informed consent and bodily integrity for pregnant women.

In Illinois, ''In re Baby Boy Doe'', 632 N.E.2d 326 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994) was a court case holding that courts may not balance whatever rights a fetus may have against the rights of a competent woman, whose choice to refuse medical treatment as invasive as a Cesarean section must be honored even if the choice may be harmful to the fetus.

''[[Pemberton v. Tallahassee Memorial Regional Center]]'', 66 F. Supp. 2d 1247 (N.D. Fla. 1999), is a case in the [[United States]] regarding [[reproductive rights]]. Pemberton had a previous Caesarean section (vertical incision), and with her second child attempted to have a [[VBAC]] (vaginal birth after c-section).<ref name=":Pemberton0">{{Cite web |title=Pemberton v. TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL REGIONAL MEDICAL, 66 F. Supp. 2d 1247 (N.D. Fla. 1999) |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/66/1247/2489193/ |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=Justia Law |language=en}}</ref> When a doctor she had approached about a related issue at the [[Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare|Tallahassee Memorial Regional Center]] found out, he and the hospital sued to force her to get a c-section. The court held that the rights of the fetus at or near birth outweighed the rights of Pemberton to determine her own medical care.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Margot |date=2010 |title="A Special Class of Persons": Pregnant Women's Right to Refuse Medical Treatment after Gonzalez v. Carhart |url=https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=jcl |journal=Journal of Constitutional Law |volume=13 |via=Penn Law Legal Scholarship Repository}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pratt |first=Lisa |date=2013–2014 |title=Access to Vaginal Birth after Cesarean Section: Restrictive Policies and the Chilling of Women's Medical Rights During Childbirth |url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1371&context=wmjowl |journal=William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice |volume=20 |pages=119}}</ref> She was physically forced to stop laboring, and taken to the hospital, where a c-section was performed.<ref name=":Pemberton0" /> Her suit against the hospital was dismissed.<ref name=":Pemberton0" />  The court held that a cesarean section at the end of a full-term pregnancy was here deemed to be medically necessary by doctors to avoid a substantial risk that the fetus would die during delivery due to uterine rupture, a risk of 4–6% according to the hospital's doctors and 2% according to Pemberton's doctors. Furthermore, the court held that a state's interest in preserving the life of an unborn child outweighed the mother's constitutional interest in bodily integrity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=U.S. District Court, N.D. Florida, Tallahassee Division |date=1999 |title=Pemberton v. Tallahassee Memorial Regional Center |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11868571/ |journal=West's Federal Supplement |volume=66 |pages=1247–1257 |issn=1047-7306 |pmid=11868571}}</ref> The court held that ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' was not applicable, because bearing an unwanted child is a greater intrusion on the mother's constitutional interests than undergoing a cesarean section to deliver a child that the mother affirmatively desires to deliver. The court further distinguished ''[[In re A.C.]]'' by stating that it left open the possibility that a non-consenting patient's interest would yield to a more compelling countervailing interest in an "extremely rare and truly exceptional case." The court then held this case to be such.<ref name=":Pemberton0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Roth |first=Louise |title=The Business of Birth: Malpractice and Maternity Care in the United States |date=2021 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |pages=189–213}}</ref>