lay sedated and in intensive care, lawyers for GW, for the city, for the fetus and for A.C. herself was not lucid enough to make the decision, the hospital called in a judge for an emergency hearing. "If it comes to it, should we perform an emergency cesarean or should we let the baby die with you?" - and since A.C. What if it was "viable" and they let it die with A.C.? Would the family find reason to sue? Since the critical question had never been posed to A.C. In the rush and heat of the situation, the hospital administrators began worrying about the fetus. She would die, probably within days, if not hours. But in her sixth month of pregnancy last June, a huge, growing, inoperable tumor appeared in A.C.'s lung, and the doctors at GW told her she could not beat it this time. "She never had dying on her mind," her husband said. A fighter and a survivor - that's how everyone described her. had gone ahead anyway and married and tried to start a family. Here was a young woman who had battled cancer since she was 13, who had lived through two long episodes of the disease after doctors had said she had no chance, who had survived multiple operations, who had lost a leg and half her pelvis to cancer. used at first for the sake of the woman's privacy - added a Kafkaesque quality to the story. Over objections of the family and A.C.'s obstetrician, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge ordered George Washington University Medical Center to deliver the baby by cesarean section. was lying in a hospital bed last June, too sedated to consult clearly with her husband, parents and doctors on what to do about the 26-week-old fetus she was carrying. Pregnant, dying of cancer, the woman known in court papers and news reports simply as A.C. THERE WAS SOMETHING CHILLING ABOUT THE CASE OF A.C.
Lost in the conflict was the person behind the initials - a spirited, vibrant, loving woman named Angie Carder.
Columnists, feminists, lawyers and medical ethicists argued over what should have been done and what shouldn't have been done. Lawyers for GWU hospital argued before a Superior Court judge for the cesarean.
It was hard to tell what A.C., drugged and in pain, wanted, though her family, her doctor and her lawyer were certain she would not want the operation. There was a chance the baby would live - if a cesarean were performed quickly. A 27-year-old woman, six months pregnant, was expected to die of cancer in days, perhaps even hours.
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