Burton v. Florida
about State intervention in a woman's pregnancy
Burton v. Florida, 49 So.3d 263 (2010), was a Florida District Court of Appeals case ruling that the court cannot impose unwanted treatment on a pregnant woman "in the best interests of the fetus" without providing evidence of fetal viability.
Facts of the case
Samantha Burton, a mother of two, was twenty-five weeks pregnant in March 2009 when she experienced a premature rupture of membranes and displayed signs of premature labor. At the urging of her obstetrician, she sought care at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. She was found not to be in labor, but ordered to remain on bed rest. Burton refused, as she was concerned about being away from her children for three months.
Her obstetrician, Dr. Jana Bures-Forsthoefel, refused to allow her to leave the hospital to garner a second opinion and then obtained a court order from the Circuit Court of Leon County which required Burton to undergo "any and all medical treatments" that her physician, acting in the interests of the fetus, deemed necessary. The Court held the hearing by telephone with Burton being required to argue her case from her hospital bed without the assistance of an attorney or independent medical opinion. Three days into her court-ordered confinement, Burton underwent an emergency C-section, at which time the fetus was found to be dead.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Burton v. Florida” is about State intervention in a woman's pregnancy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Burton, Florida and State, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “about State intervention in a woman's pregnancy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5000948. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2010 and 2009.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
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Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Burton v. Florida” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.