A woman accused of murder in the death of her stillborn baby says she is being used to make a political statement.
Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, spoke in a jailhouse phone interview Monday with the Deseret Morning News. Earlier Monday, she pleaded not guilty before 3rd District Judge Sandra Peuler during a brief arraignment hearing via closed-circuit television from the Salt Lake County Jail. Rowland said she will be unable to hire an attorney, so Peuler appointed public defender Mike Sikora to handle her case. Sikora is also representing Rowland in her fight against a related child-endangerment charge.
Rowland was charged last week with murder after prosecutors said she refused a doctor-recommended Caesarean section. One of the twins she was carrying was born dead. The other twin has since been adopted.
In a telephone call from the Salt Lake County Jail, Rowland said she agreed with the position taken by the National Organization for Women: She has become the victim of politics.
"This to me is tantamount to Roe v. Wade," Rowland said Monday, referring to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that constitutionally guaranteed a woman's right to abortion. "I did not refuse a C-section, regardless of what they say. As far as I'm concerned, this goes back to, 'It's your body, it's your right to do what you want with it.' I just don't know why they have to pick little me to make an example out of."
On Friday, NOW president Kim Gandy told the Deseret Morning News she suspected prosecutors saw in Rowland an unsympathetic character and wondered whether she would have been charged were she a "soccer mom." Gandy said beyond any political statement the case also carries a powerful legal statement.
"Once you've established in the law the right to second-guess a person's decision about their medical care, then it's been established," Gandy said.
But Kent Morgan, assistant Salt Lake County district attorney, said such speculation is no more than "alluding to political aspirations that don't exist in this office."
"We have no statement to make with respect to the criticism I've heard, such as whether or not (the charge represents a position) either for or against abortion rights or pro-choice rights or anything like that," he said. "That was never a consideration, still isn't.
"With respect to a mother's choice to choose treatment, that's never been a consideration because, of course, you have a right to choose your own treatment. This is about the treatment that caused the death of a child, not the treatment that the mother chose for herself."
Prosecutors allege Rowland demonstrated "depraved indifference to human life," but the case has drawn national attention because of its implications in the debate over parents' rights as well as women's rights.
"We knew it was going to be controversial, but we did not know that it was going to receive the national and international attention that it has," Morgan said.
Rowland told KSL Newsradio 1160 last week that she came to Utah from Florida in November to have the babies and had planned to place them for adoption. She denied she was advised to have a C-section and also denied prosecutors' claims she was worried about scarring from the procedure.
She said the twins were born by C-section Jan. 13 and said she has previously had two C-sections.
The murder charge was filed while Rowland was in the Salt Lake County Jail. She said she had been there for two months on a child endangerment charge, which apparently stems from the same incident. Rowland has a scheduled preliminary hearing in 3rd District Court this afternoon on that charge.
Court documents state on Jan. 2, Rowland visited LDS Hospital and saw a doctor who recommended an immediate C-section because of fetal heart difficulties and a problematic ultrasound that showed the babies were not developing well, and because Rowland had low amniotic fluid.
The doctor said in a written statement Rowland left the hospital against medical advice and that she acknowledged her departure could result in significant brain injury or death to one or both of the babies, court documents state.
Rowland's next court date on the murder charge is a scheduling conference set for Monday.
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com