ABSTRACT
The country Superior Court conducted an emergency hearing at the hospital at which a physician testified that there was a 99 percent probability of fetal death and a 50 percent probability of maternal death unless the section was performed. The woman refused a cesarean section for religious reasons, and her husband supported her decision. A juvenile court judge ruled that the fetus was suffering medical neglect and awarded temporary protective custody to a hospital lawyer along with the power to consent to a section and to other medical or surgical procedures. Most of the evidence on the basis of which court orders were sought for this group of women came from two sources: ultrasound for diagnosis of placenta previa; and fetal monitoring to assess the status of the fetus. The portrayal of the women who were the targets of court-ordered sections is strikingly negative.
