"Labor" Laws in Travis County

Some Texas women think it's okay to induce labor before full term, and some of their doctors disagree. Seton Hospitals of Austin declared it risky and unsafe to perform early inductions (delivery before 39 weeks) and stopped the practice some 4 years ago. Since then, Seton has lost many pregnant women (and millions of dollars, concurrently) to other hospitals that perform early deliveries. Now, Seton is hoping that state legislatures pass a measure to award incentives to hospitals that adhere more closely to Mother Nature's law. While most women would argue that the state doesn't belong in the delivery room, and I, for the most part, agree, the argument here is why would women want to risk the safety of their babies? And why should the state have to get involved when medical experts can prove the benefits of carrying to term in uncomplicated pregnancies?

I know, I am a man. And honestly, I don't even think I have much right saying what is and what isn't considered fair relating to women's privacy rights. But that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. To be a bit more informed in my opinion, I Googled "How early is too early to induce labor?" and "Why do women induce labor/plan cesarean delivery?" The answers ranged anywhere from "Doctor scheduled it around his vacation or other planned deliveries" to "I'm scared it's gunna get too big and hurt, or rip me in two!" Aside from the few who said they were not fit to deliver naturally, answers to my question seemed kind of selfish or ignorant.

I myself was born at Seton, 29 years ago, through a planned cesarean delivery at 38 weeks. My mother had complications with my oldest brother, and had lost my baby brother Davy to suffocation due to an entangled umbilical cord, so she did not wish to risk another natural birth. In uncomplicated cases however, it proves beneficial to the development of the unborn child to carry it full term.

So to the women who wish to induce to ease personal discomfort or simply to fit their schedule...I just don't understand why.

I assume that women don't want the state telling them what's best for their body's. I would also assume women consider what they do with their babies a private and closed-to-discussion matter. The issue of abortion comes to mind. It is a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. That is understandable, and I would (were I a woman) rally the troops against any politician who tried to tell me otherwise. Without being graphic, that baby is no more. Sadly, for whatever reasons, it never happened. That baby doesn't need protection from the law, it needs protection from a life of being a mistake. While the laws are in place to help regulate the latest an abortion can take place, they are there mostly for the protection of the woman. That said, it makes total sense that if a baby is to be born, some wiser, more knowledgeable entity needs to be there to tell a woman what is the safest route to a healthy pregnancy.

I think if people don't want government to be involved in such decisions, then people need to start making better choices. The facts presented by the hospital's findings (millions of dollars in reduced post-natal and trauma care and reduced percentages of newborn sickness by the week) should be enough to deter women from supporting hospitals that allow doctors to schedule births like they were oil changes. But sadly, it isn't. People always have the right to govern what happens to their person, even if it may be a costly mistake.

I applaud Seton, and St. David for making a risky business move themselves. Companies doing the right thing, to the tune of trying to save individual's precious money and quite possibly lives, should probably be rewarded. But where should these rewards come from? If a law is passed to offer these incentives, are my tax dollars yet again going to support a cause I may believe in but don't wish to pay for? I'm sorry. I just never thought of hospitals as a struggling industry. If government awarded subsidies to hospitals for doing the public a service, are they then allowed to overstep their boundaries and micromanage labors from above?

These issues are kinda scary to me. A money machine tries to do something ethical, that could very well lose itself dollars, and they lose more business because the people want what the people want. It'll be the day that something awful (and likely preventable) happens to a baby during a voluntary early induction that the same mother who supports convenience over safety wishes to sue the hospital for damages. In that case, she will come crying to the justice system to take her defense and make right (financially, anyway) her and the doctor's wrong. Then you have unhappy baby, unhappy mommy, unhappy doctors, unhappy hospital. Were I a lawmaker right now, I'd figure out a way to keep all hospitals doing the right thing, and all women trying to follow suit.

If widely available education and the admonishing of professional medical associations against unnecessary induced labor doesn't help these women chose wisely, what will? An Early Birth Tax? I'm not opposed.