This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Court-Ordered Medical Treatments and Legal Penalties for Potentially Harmful Behavior by Pregnant Women

JAMA. 1990;264(20):2663-2670.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

ORDINARILY, the pregnant woman, in consultation with her physician, acts in all reasonable ways to enhance the health of her fetus. Indeed, clinicians are frequently impressed with the amount of personal health risk undertaken and voluntary self-restraint exhibited by the pregnant woman for the sake of her fetus and to help ensure that her child will be as healthy as possible.¹ In a limited number of situations, however, a pregnant woman may reject a medical treatment or procedure that her physician believes would benefit the health of her fetus. For instance, she may refuse to submit to a cesarean section when her physician believes that a cesarean section is in the best interests of the fetus. Or a pregnant woman may behave in ways that are potentially detrimental to fetal well-being, for example, taking illegal drugs while pregnant.

Increasingly, legal interventions are being sought in cases in which the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
From the Board of Trustees, American Medical Association, Chicago, Ill.

This report was adopted as Report 00 by the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association at the Annual Meeting, June 1990.

Reprint requests to the Board of Trustees, American Medical Association, 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60610 (Dr Orentlicher).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?