Abstract

In 1987, a young woman named Angela Carder, pregnant and dying from cancer, was ordered by a court of law to undergo a cesarean delivery against her and her family’s wishes. She and her baby both died. Three years later, an appeals court took an extraordinary stand: it vacated the order that ended their lives and upheld pregnant women’s rights to informed consent and bodily integrity. The “unkindest cut of all,”1 it seemed, had been condemned by the courts.2 Yet shortly before the twenty-year anniversary of this landmark case, the same rights were stripped from another young pregnant woman. In January of this year, oral arguments were heard in the case of Samantha Burton. She had been twenty-five weeks ..