New mother arrested

Salt Lake City

A Utah woman was charged with murder this week after refusing to deliver her twins by cesarean section. One of them, a boy, died before birth. The woman, Melissa Rowland, was also charged with child endangerment, because the surviving baby, a girl, had cocaine and alcohol in her system. Doctors told police they’d urged Rowland to have a C-section, but that she’d said she would rather “lose one of the babies than be cut like that.” Rowland denied refusing the operation, and said doctors told her that the twins were fine. The Deseret News, a Utah newspaper, reported that Rowland called a California couple from jail, offering to give them a baby boy if they paid her $5,000 bail.