On another legal note, I can’t refrain from comment on the recent news that Utah prosecutors have filed charges against a woman for her failure to have a c-section.

I looked up the technical definition of murder in Utah:

76-5-203. Murder.
(1) As used in this section, "predicate offense" means:
(b) child abuse, under Subsection 76-5-109(2)(a), when the victim is younger than 18 years of age;
(2) Criminal homicide constitutes murder if:
(a) the actor intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another;
(b) intending to cause serious bodily injury to another, the actor commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of another;
(c) acting under circumstances evidencing a depraved indifference to human life, the actor engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another and thereby causes the death of another;
(d) (i) the actor is engaged in the commission, attempted commission, or immediate flight from the commission or attempted commission of any predicate offense, or is a party to the predicate offense;
(ii) a person other than a party as defined in Section 76-2-202 is killed in the course of the commission, attempted commission, or immediate flight from the commission or attempted commission of any predicate offense; and
(iii) the actor acted with the intent required as an element of the predicate offense;

There is also a Negligent Homicide section in the Utah code, but I don’t think they used it based on the fact that her attorney seems to be going for a mental illness defense, which is specifically used for the charge of murder itself.

76-5-206. Negligent homicide.
(1) Criminal homicide constitutes negligent homicide if the actor, acting with criminal negligence, causes the death of another.
(2) Negligent homicide is a class A misdemeanor.

Problems I see:

This would be a crime of omission, not commission. It’s not analogous to the cases where women indulge in cocaine cocktails while in their third trimester of pregnancy - she didn’t do anything to overtly harm the child, she just failed to consent to undergo a medical procedure to save the child’s life.

This differs from the definitions of murder in Utah law, which talk about “causing” the death of another, or “committing an act” dangerous to human life. They could try to boot-strap this under (d) by saying she was engaged in the commission of child abuse by the omission of medical care to the child. But it still boils down to a failure to render aid case, and you can’t ignore the fact that she didn’t simply refuse some care to the child (i.e. a blood transfusion) but rather refused to submit herself to an operation.

It is my understanding she gave a rather lame excuse for failing to get the c-section, stating that doctors wanted to cut her "from breast bone to pubic bone" and she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that." She denies making the statements. However, the excuse is not really relevant, the issue is whether or not to require her to have surgery on herself in order to save another’s life. She could just as easily have had a valid reason for not wanting surgery, as it is never without complications. Just look at Olivia Goldsmith, the woman who made a fortune writing about the virtues of older, “first wives” and then epitomized irony by dying on the operating table while being prepped for plastic surgery. As any anesthesiologist will tell you, surgery entails risks above and beyond simple scars or infection.

What if: 1) the child was a viable, legal, separate human being at the time of the choice, and 2) the mother refused to undergo surgery that would save its life, and 3) that surgery would have entailed certain risks to her own life, though not as certain a risk as faced by the child. I still don’t think you have a murder here under the definition of Utah law, and you've utterly removed the abortion issue from the equation.

I don't believe the prevailing socio-legal philosophies can support this as a murder charge. Take "Good Samaritan" laws. We have them to encourage people to aid others in distress, without fear that they are placing themselves at risk for liability if they do so. That makes sense – we want to encourage prospective heroes to do what they can. But we don’t require a bystander to jump into a freezing river to save a drowning victim. We don’t require even a parent to rush into a burning building to save their child.

Probably the most compelling analogy that occurred to me is this: are we prepared to prosecute potential organ/tissue donors for the murder of the prospective recipients if they refuse to go through with the donation?

I understand we’re still fleshing out the issues behind the duties, if any, to unborn children. But this seems a poor precedent to set.