Cherise Doyley was pregnant with her fourth child and 12 hours into labor when a nurse came into her hospital room to include her in a court hearing.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville, Florida, woman is demanding change after she was forced to appear before a judge while in active labor.
Cherise Doyley’s baby girl, Arewa, was born on Sept. 9, 2024, at UF Health in downtown Jacksonville. Doyley, who is a doula and was a mother of three at the time, thought she knew what to expect going into labor this time around.
Doyley said she went to the hospital feeling excited and ready, but 12 hours into labor, the unexpected happened.
“This was the most dehumanizing, scary, traumatic experience I’ve ever been in in my life,” Doyley said. “I did not know what was going on or what to expect.”
She was suddenly in a court hearing from her hospital bed and in her hospital gown.
Doyley’s doctor and the UF Health medical team asked the State Attorney’s Office to file an emergency petition asking for a judge to grant an emergency C-section.
“Just, even to discuss that is crazy without me being notified for me to be able to have my own legal representation. When I’m fine, my baby is fine, I’m in a perfect sound mind,” Doyley said during the hearing.
During the hearing, UF Health Doctor Erin Burnett said Doyley’s labor was progressing slowly and she was worried about the baby’s heart rate and the chance of a uterine rupture. She also told the judge she was concerned Doyley was not going to act in the best interest of her baby.
“She made the comment, ‘If my baby dies, so be it,’ Burnett said. “That’s what started a lot of this today.”
Doyley told First Coast News that was not true. She said that statement was taken out of context.
“The statement was in regards to if it is my life or the baby’s life, the baby is gonna have to die, and I stand on that because I have three other children that I have to take care of,” Doyley said during the hearing.
Doyley was insistent; she did not want another C-section. She said this would have been her fourth, and recovering from the surgery while also caring for her three other children would be difficult.
“After each of my C-sections, I was re-hospitalized and I battled infections, and I even had a hemorrhage after my C-section before that,” Doyley said.
Doyley asked for legal representation multiple times throughout the nearly three-hour long hearing, but the judge said she did not have a constitutional right to counsel. She did have a doula in the room who was able to advocate with her.
Under Florida law, the life of an unborn child outweighs a pregnant woman’s right to bodily autonomy, which allows for the courts to intervene.
A spokesperson for the State Attorney’s Office provided the following statement:
“UF Health alerted the State Attorney’s Office that a 41-week, full-term baby was facing grave risk of death without medical intervention. The mother was refusing that care. In accordance with our legal duty, our office brought the matter before the Circuit Court, which held an evidentiary hearing. After hearing from the mother and medical professionals, the Court determined a cesarean delivery was necessary to protect the child’s life and mother’s health.”
“The State Attorney’s Office does not make medical decisions — we ensured the Court was presented with the facts so a judge could make his determination under the law.”
Dr. Chandra Adams is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Jacksonville not affiliated with this case. She said court-ordered C-sections do not happen often.
“I’ve been delivering for over 20 years, never been in that situation,” Adams said. “It’s extremely rare and uncommon to need to involve an actual judge, an actual court, in a typical labor situation.”
The UF Health doctors maintained that a C-section was necessary to ensure the health and safety of both the baby and mother, despite Doyley saying the risks of continuing with a vaginal birth were low and she did not agree that this was an emergency.
Adams said performing an emergency C-section depends on what is being deemed an emergency, and sometimes doctors make a call before the situation becomes dire. She said the risk of a uterine rupture increases after each C-section because the uterine muscle becomes weaker and might not be able to withstand contractions.
“Typically, if you’ve had one C-section before, your risk is less than 1%. With two C-sections, your risk is around 1% to 2%. The numbers for above two C-sections are not as easily found in the literature because it’s not as common to labor after more than two C-sections,” Adams said.
Doyley said she felt uncomfortable as the only Black person on the hearing and even asked for a Black nurse or doctor to see her instead.
“It was scary to think that not only was this decision being made by non-Black people, but also seven males on that call that would never have the choice that I had to make to give birth or to choose what was best for me in that moment, so it was very scary and alarming,” Doyley said.
After nearly three hours, the judge did not end up making a ruling. Instead, everyone agreed to reconvene the next morning and a C-section would only be performed if something changed with the baby or mother’s health.
Later that night, Doyley found herself being wheeled to an operating room. The doctors told the court during another hearing that morning that the baby’s heart rate dropped and an emergency C-section was performed.
Doyley said one of the worst parts was waiting hours to hold her daughter.
“I was overwhelmed, right, because you have me in court to where I can’t even sit up in this bed, and you want me to relive the trauma of everything that you guys put me through the day before and I still have not been able to see my baby,” she said. “It felt very intentional; it felt like they were trying to punish me for standing up for myself.”
Over a year later, baby Arewa is smiling, happy and healthy.
Doyley said she still feels violated.
“This is not just a simple disagreement between provider and patients,” she said. “This is about bodily autonomy and women having the right to choose, the right to say no and informed consent.”
A UF Health Jacksonville spokesperson said they cannot comment on any specific patient without consent.
Adams said having some sort of patient advocate in the room for situations like this could be helpful moving forward.
“I think there’s an opportunity there for hospitals to have advocates who are designated for obstetrics, because beyond just the clinical aspect of obstetrics, there’s medical, legal and ethical considerations, too, and so having a specific service with which hospitals could contract to weigh in as intermediaries between the team taking care of the patient, the patient herself, and the legal staff there to determine competency for proceeding with labor,” Adams said.
Doyley is now turning her pain into action. She is demanding a change in laws and encouraging other women to speak up.
“Advocate like your life depends on it because it does,” Doyley said. “Your voice matters, your choice matters, and stand up for yourself. Do your research and you go in prepared so that you can hopefully have the birth that you want on your terms.”
Doyley has since created a petition to stop court-ordered C-sections and for UF Health to be held accountable. It has more than 30,000 signatures so far. She is also exploring legal action.