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Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."
She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."
They said Ms Rowland refused the Caesarean because she did not want "her cosmetic appearance to be disfigured".
Ms Rowland, who is being held in jail on $250,000 bail, denies the charge. If convicted, she could face life in jail.
Rowland's 'omissions'
An autopsy found the baby boy died two days before its 13 January delivery.
Medics said it would have survived had Ms Rowland had a Caesarean between Christmas and 9 January - as her doctors urged her to do. The other twin was in stable condition.
A nurse at a city hospital said she heard Ms Rowland saying she left the hospital because doctors wanted to cut her open "from breast bone to pubic bone" and that this would "ruin her life", court documents say.
The documents also say Ms Rowland said she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that".
"It was her (Ms Rowland's) omissions that caused the death of the child," Kent Morgan of the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office was quoted as saying by the Deseret Morning News newspaper.
"She was given three or four opportunities to get a C-section to save the baby. She continued to say no," Mr Morgan added.
In a jailhouse interview with KSL Newsradio 1160, Ms Rowland denied she had been advised to have a C-section with the twins.
"I've never refused a C-section. I've already had two prior C-sections. Why would I say something like that?" Ms Rowland said.
Unique case
In January, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that unborn children at all stages of development are covered under the state's criminal homicide statute. The law exempts the death of a foetus during an abortion.
The state law has been used to prosecute women who killed or harmed their unborn babies through their lifestyle, drinking or drugs.
But it has never been applied to prosecute a woman who failed to follow her doctor's advice, Marguerite Driessen, a law professor at Brigham Young University said.
"It's very troubling to have somebody come in and say we're going to charge this mother for murder because we don't like the choices she made," Prof Driessen said.
Ms Rowland's case has already triggered a heated debate across the country.
Last month, after an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband, Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home.\ Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.
The District Attorney -- after three weeks of investigation -- eventually declined to prosecute Taylor. Before you get too happy, keep in mind that this decision was made, not because the arrest was travesty to begin with, but because it came to light that Taylor was late in her second trimester when she fell, not early in her third as the hospital staff had thought
Uploaded by rriverstone1 on Apr 3, 2012
The script and links to all news stories cited, will be found in my ViriDiana blog here: http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/2012/04/feminatheism-pregnant-murdere...
Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges
The Guardian World News: http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges
Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child. Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
. . .
Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.. . .
In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.
Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her foetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.
The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."
She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."
Mother charged in Caesarean row
BBC NEWS, The Americas http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3504720.stm
A US woman who allegedly ignored medical warnings to have a Caesarean section has been charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn.
Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, showed "depraved indifference to human life", prosecutors in Salt Lake City said. They said Ms Rowland refused the Caesarean because she did not want "her cosmetic appearance to be disfigured".
Ms Rowland, who is being held in jail on $250,000 bail, denies the charge. If convicted, she could face life in jail.
Rowland's 'omissions'
An autopsy found the baby boy died two days before its 13 January delivery.
 |  I've never refused a C-section. I've already had two prior C-sections. Why would I say something like that?  Melissa Ann Rowland |
A nurse at a city hospital said she heard Ms Rowland saying she left the hospital because doctors wanted to cut her open "from breast bone to pubic bone" and that this would "ruin her life", court documents say.
The documents also say Ms Rowland said she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that".
"It was her (Ms Rowland's) omissions that caused the death of the child," Kent Morgan of the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office was quoted as saying by the Deseret Morning News newspaper.
"She was given three or four opportunities to get a C-section to save the baby. She continued to say no," Mr Morgan added.
In a jailhouse interview with KSL Newsradio 1160, Ms Rowland denied she had been advised to have a C-section with the twins.
"I've never refused a C-section. I've already had two prior C-sections. Why would I say something like that?" Ms Rowland said.
Unique case
In January, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that unborn children at all stages of development are covered under the state's criminal homicide statute. The law exempts the death of a foetus during an abortion.
The state law has been used to prosecute women who killed or harmed their unborn babies through their lifestyle, drinking or drugs.
But it has never been applied to prosecute a woman who failed to follow her doctor's advice, Marguerite Driessen, a law professor at Brigham Young University said.
"It's very troubling to have somebody come in and say we're going to charge this mother for murder because we don't like the choices she made," Prof Driessen said.
Ms Rowland's case has already triggered a heated debate across the country.
Pregnant Iowa Woman Arrested for Falling Down
Change.org News: http://news.change.org/stories/pregnant-iowa-woman-arrested-for-falling-downLast month, after an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband, Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home.\ Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.
. . .
Alone, distraught, and frightened, Taylor confided in the nurse treating her that she hadn't always been sure she'd wanted this baby, now that she was single and unemployed. She'd considered both adoption and abortion before ultimately deciding to keep the child. The nurse then summoned a doctor, who questioned her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose.
According to Iowa state law, attempted feticide is an trying "to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy." At least 37 states have similar laws. Taylor spent two days in jail before being released. That's right, a pregnant woman was jailed for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later. Please tell me you find this as horrifying as I do.
. . .
Christine Taylor came to them emotionally vulnerable in order to seek help for her unborn child. She thought she was in a safe place talking to professionals in whom she could confide. Oops, her bad. As Robert Rigg, professor at the Drake University Law School, said, "How in the heck did the police get a statement made by a patient to a medical person during the course of treatment?
