Utah Mother Charged With Killing Fetus

MARCH 12--A Utah woman who refused a Caesarean section that doctors believed would have saved the life of one of her unborn twins was charged with murder yesterday. Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, was named in the below criminal information filed in District Court by Salt Lake City prosecutors. Investigators contend that Rowland exhibited "depraved indifference to human life" when she rejected the Caesarean in mid-January because she did not want to be scarred by the surgery. Rowland, according to one nurse who spoke with police, said she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that." Prosecutors contend that Rowland was repeatedly warned that her twins could die without the C-section. When she delivered the children on January 13, one baby was stillborn, while the other twin survived. (3 pages)