Melissa Ann Rowland is the 28-year-old woman who was charged with the murder of her stillborn child after repeatedly refusing a C-section for a set of twins. According to e-thepeople.org, court documents claim authorities arrested her for “depraved indifference to human life.”Salt Lake City prosecutors claim Rowland “declined that procedure for cosmetic reasons.” A nurse in the room claims Rowland said she would rather “lose one of the babies than be cut like that.” They do not tell us if the drugs and anesthetics she was on are known to alter a person’s state of rationalization. They do not mention that Rowland has given birth twice before. She said, “I’ve already had two prior C-sections. Why would I say something like that?”
Whether Rowland said such a statement should be irrelevant. Clearly, this is a selfish and immoral act, but does this interfere with a woman exercising her rights to control her own body?
If this woman is going to be arrested for depraving a human life then authorities should go ahead and arrest all women who use birth control and who have had abortions. They should arrest all men who use condoms and pull out early, because these are all acts of depraving a human life.
If a mother was the only match to transplant a kidney to her teenage daughter, and she denied the procedure, she would not be arrested for murder. She may be frowned upon by society, as is Rowland, but it would not be considered an act of murder.
Rowland is currently being held in Salt Lake County Jail for $250,000 bond including another charge of child endangerment. She reportedly took drugs that could “harm the infant who survived the pregnancy.” Taking drugs during a pregnancy is also immoral, but so is drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Plenty of pregnant women have allowed those toxins into their bodies, and they have not been arrested. Utah is also one of the most politically conservative states in the union. It is also known to be an extremely polluted environment. Salt Lake City has a history of birth defects, and anyone who does a little research can find that the high incidence of birth defects can be traced to industrial pollutants in the soil, air, and water.
According to Greenaction.org, Stericycle, Inc. is the last commercial medical waste incinerator in the western region, burning waste from Utah, California, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas at their facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. The incinerator is permitted to burn 22 tons of medical and non-medical waste per day, including chemicals and metals that are known to cause cancer and ill-health effects.
So why don’t the authorities go after industrial companies like Stericycle, Inc. and sue them? Why don’t we elect politicians who make the environment one of their top five priorities? Charging industrial companies for birth defects that cause pregnancy complications which lead to an infant death is equal to charging Rowland with murder for denying a C-section. It is immoral and selfish. It is not illegal.