Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T03:11:14.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Childbirth and the Courts: The Wrong Issue in the Wrong Forum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

George J. Annas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While most courtroom confrontations involving childbirth concern parents seeking damages for alleged physician and hospital negligence, a number of recent cases have involved parents seeking simply to have their babies with a minimum of medical intervention. Courts, however, have consistently deferred to “expert” medical opinion in this area.

The extreme reluctance of courts to substitute their judgment for that of hospital boards is nowhere better illustrated than in the cases involving fathers in the delivery room. While most hospitals with maternity wards currently permit “husband-coached' (Lamaze or psychoprophylactic being the most common method) childbirth, in which the father is with the mother throughout labor and delivery, supplying physical and emotional support, lawsuits to compel a change in the policies of those institutions that do not, have been universally unsuccessful to date.

Type
Article
Information
Medicolegal News , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Spring 1976 , pp. 4 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

As a result of a notice in the Fall, 1975 issue of the Newsletter of the International Childbirth Education Association, printed courtesy of ICEA President, Peg Beals, R.N., I have been informed of pending cases in St. Cloud, Minnesota, St. Joseph, Missouri, Forty Myers, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, none of which have been successful to date.Google Scholar
St. Vincent's Hospital v. Hulit, 520 P.2d 99 (Mont. 1974).Google Scholar
On the issue of whether there is a right to judicial review of a private hospital's decision making process, the court said: “We need not here decide that issue, but will assume that such a review is proper.”Google Scholar
It is of interest to note that while the court lifted the temporary restraining order, the hospital has apparently continued to permit fathers in the delivery room. (Private communication, Peg Beals, Nov. 11, 1975.)Google Scholar
Fitzgerald v. Porter Memorial Hospital, 523 F.2d 716 (7th Cir. 1975).Google Scholar
See Fahey v. Holy Family Hospital, 336 N.E.2d 309 (III. 1975); Khan v. Suburban Comm. Hospital, 340 N.E.2d 398 (Ohio 1976); Sosa v. Bd. of Managers of Val Verde Mem. Hospital, 437 F.2d 173 (5th Cir, 1971Google Scholar
Bowland v. Municipal Court, 54 C.A.3d 810 (1976).Google Scholar
Justus v. Atchison, Powell V. Atchson, 126 Cal. Rptr. 150 (Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1975).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Arms S., Immaculate Deception, Houghton Mifflin, 1975; W. & J. Woolfolk, The Great American Birth Rite, Dial Press, 1975; and Leboyer F., Birth Without Violence, A. Knopf, 1975; Haire D., The Cultural Warping of Childbirth, ICEA, 1972.Google Scholar
See Newsletter of the International Childbirth Education Association, Winter Issue, 1975–76.Google Scholar
See Harper's Weekly, March 1, 1976.Google Scholar