House arrest

Samantha Burton, a 26-year-old unmarried Florida mother of two, was 25 weeks pregnant last March when she displayed signs of premature labor. At the urging of her obstetrician, she sought care at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.

She was found not to be in labor, but was advised she should stay in bed at the hospital until the delivery. She was also told to quit smoking.

When she sought to leave the hospital to seek a second opinion, however, the obstetrician, Dr. Jana Bures-Forsthoefel, barred her exit, obtaining an order from the Circuit Court of Leon County requiring Ms. Burton to undergo "any and all medical treatments" that the physician, acting in the interests of the fetus, deemed necessary.

The court held the hearing by telephone, requiring Ms. Burton to argue her case from her hospital bed without the assistance of counsel or an independent medical opinion. Three days into her court-ordered confinement, Ms. Burton underwent an emergency C-section, at which time the fetus was reportedly found to be dead.

David H. Abrams, a nurse attorney, has appealed the court ruling on Ms. Burton's behalf. The Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has joined.

The hospital argues that it had a duty to protect the fetus under Florida's child welfare statutes. The ACLU counters that such a holding would set a dangerous precedent, risking "virtually unfettered intrusion into the lives of pregnant women."

A leading bioethicist, Jacob M. Appel, writing at www.huffingtonpost.com, calls for the physician to be disciplined, writing: "Women who fear that they will be coerced into unwanted care will not seek any care at all -- and the inevitable result will be miscarriages, premature births, sick children and even maternal mortality."

The plaintiffs have it right. Absent any finding that Ms. Burton was mentally deranged beyond the ability to run around loose, this is womb slavery, plain and simple.

Once we embrace the doctrine that a pregnant woman is nothing but the accidental host of a future taxpayer who is the state's property, it's only one short step for a court to rule: "You're behaving in ways that endanger the state's child. Therefore you will be chained to that hospital bed under armed guard, force-fed if necessary, until you give birth."

There have been regimes that might have countenanced such logic. America is not among them.