Chapter 6.C.2: Pregnant Women and Forced Medical Treatment

For additional consideration of the ethical and legal aspects of forced medical treatment see April L. Cherry, The Free Exercise Rights of Pregnant Women Who Refuse Medical Treatment, 69 Tenn. L. Rev. 563 (2002); Michelle Goodwin, Fetal Protection Laws: Moral Panic and the New Constitutional Battlefront, 102 Cal. L. Rev. 781 (2014); Michelle Oberman, Mothers and Doctors’ Orders: Unmasking the Doctor’s Fiduciary Role in Maternal-Fetal Conflicts, 94 Nw. U. L. Rev. 451 (2000). Court ordered medical interventions are analyzed in April L. Cherry, Roe’s Legacy: The Nonconsensual Medical Treatment of Pregnant Women and Implications for Female Citizenship, 6 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 723 (2004); Linda C. Fentiman, The New “Fetal Protection”: The Wrong Answer to the Crisis of Inadequate Health Care for Women and Children, 84 Denv. U. L. Rev. 537 (2006); Lynn M. Paltrow & Jeanne Flavin, Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973-2005, 38 J. Health Politics, Pol’y and L.299 (2013). Articles considering less physically intrusive forms of forced medical care include Julie D. Cantor, Court-Ordered Care — A Complication of Pregnancy to Avoid, 366 New Eng. J. Med. 2237 (2012); April L. Cherry, The Detention, Confinement, and Incarceration of Pregnant Women for the Benefit of Fetal Health, 16 Colum. J. Gender & L. 147 (2007).