You Americans have completely lost it.
During COVID there were all these people talking about 'bodily autonomy' and I felt that was overblown, vaccines are one of the best things that have happened to humanity and the only reason that a very large number of inevitably fatal or grievously harming diseases have come under control and are no longer a cause for infant mortality or lifelong paralysis.
But this is on another level, very personal and immediate and I find I can't shift my perspective to the 'common good' one here. A hospital performing surgery on you that you explicitly say you do not want and then forcing you by putting you in court through 'zoom' is such a mis-application of technology that I wonder if they remember why they are there in the first place. This does not feel like care to me.
I've been in hospital a couple of times in my life and I never had the idea that that machine that was taking care of me could turn against me. But this poor woman will most likely never want to see the inside of a hospital again.
And that took 15 years...
Is this real? Here in Argentina someone had a esophageal endoscopy a few years ago. The hospital used a high pressure air tank to insert air in the esophagus instead of a low pressure one. Her esophagus broke and she died for internal bleeding. She [the victim] was very well connected, an air TV journalist and a member of the council of the city of Buenos Aires (~3MM habitats, capital city). IIRC the only penalty was a 3 years sentence in parole the full time.
Vaccine mandates are more difficult. If this mother's freedom wasn't violated then she would only risk herself and her baby. If somebody doesn't take a vaccine they place risk on many other people (mostly children) who can't be vaccinated by weakening herd immunity.
Contrast the above with a case of two lives in one package. An independently functional mother and an as yet unborn child. Is it reasonable to allow the mother to risk their own life (and endanger the linked child's life) in pursuit of some belief when that risk does not spread to others? That is a very different question than one which has an impact on risk to society as a whole.
I will say, if you support enforcing a particular outcome against 'parents rights' in this case, you had better also be for more state intervention and standards upkeep with respect to ensuring that child has sufficient resources and support to become a functioning member of society. If you're willing to go that far, then I can support the logical stance of extending said support even to the point of forcing the child out of their mother against the only individual who could consent or deny consent for that effort.
First, there are no general mandates. The most we have from the state is mandatory vaccines to work in certain government roles or to attend public schools. Both of these have alternatives. For adults the vast majority of vaccine mandates originate from private employment. In this case she requested to be moved to a different hospital but this was denied. There was no alternative for her in this case.
Second, vaccines are far less invasive than significant abdominal surgery. This person's reasoning for avoiding a c-section was about being able to care for her newborn and other children effectively, since recovering from a c-section is a huge additional burden on top of caring for a newborn. This was not a decision made about protecting herself but a decision made about protecting her family from the consequences of her major surgery. She'd had several c-sections before (which she felt may have been unnecessary), which is why she was at risk of uterine rupture.
This is made worse by abortion bans. If you've had a prior c-section and are therefore at risk of uterine rupture, the only way out of a pregnancy in Florida past very early pregnancy is delivery. You are locked into major abdominal surgery even if you don't want the baby.
Your continued employment as a healthcare worker, government worker or contractor, could be made conditional on vaccination status, though.
