5 - In Re Madyun, 114 Daily Wash. Law. Rptr. 2233 (D.C. Super. Ct., 1986)

Summary

Stare decisis dictates that some injustices endure in our jurisprudence, waiting for a moment when they might be dusted off and properly discarded. Buck v. Bell and the forced sterilization of people with disabilities, Korematsu v. United States and the detention of people of foreign descent, and Geduldig v. Aiello and discrimination against pregnant people; even though we have made progress slowly (and, in some cases, legislatively), each of these decisions stands as a threat to the communities they marginalize and to just and equitable rule of law. In re Madyun is such a case, representing a line of thinking that accords with neither medical ethics nor law but which courts periodically cite as they grasp for justification for overriding a pregnant patient’s decisions. This case and others like it persist as thorns in the side of advocates for Birth Justice and the elimination of obstetric violence.