A leading doctor in US has cautioned against early cesarean deliveries amid concern that some women might opt for the procedure to beat US President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.

New Jersey-based leading cardiologist Dr Avinash Gupta told PTI that performing such surgeries would be “unethical” and could harm both the mother and the child.

One of the first significant executive orders that Trump signed after taking the oath of office was on birthright citizenship, bypassing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution which states that people born within the US will automatically be American citizens.

However, the executive order says that if a baby is born to a mother who is “unlawfully present” in the United States and if the father is not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the baby’s birth, the child will not be an American citizen.

The order would also apply to those babies whose mothers are in the US legally but on temporary visas such as student, work, or tourism and the father is not a United States citizen or a Green Card holder.

Dr Gupta said he “heard such things” in the news. “That’s true,” he said, cautioning against this.

“If somebody is waiting for elective cesarean section then the date can be adjusted by a few days, less than a week or so, but I don’t think it can be preponed if somebody is seven or eight months pregnant. They cannot have pre-term delivery because it’s not healthy for the mother nor the child, and the child may end up in the neonatal intensive care unit,” Dr Gupta said.

“I don’t think any obstetrician will agree to that because it would be considered a malpractice. And they are liable till the child gets to the age of 18, so nobody will take that risk.” He said that if there is an injury in some way to the child, “it could come to a penalty of millions of dollars. So it’s simply not tenable”.

He pointed out that such a medical procedure would be “unethical” and would not be in the best interest of the child or the mother.

The order could impact several expectant Indian couples who are in the US on H1-B and other work visas as their children born in the US would not be considered American citizens.

The order would have come into effect from February 19 but a federal judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked it.

Several other states across the US, including New York, have also sued to block Trump’s order.

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she and a coalition of 18 states, as well as the city of San Francisco, are challenging Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship in violation of the constitutional right given to all children born in the United States.

Attorney General James and the coalition filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts seeking to stop the president’s “unlawful action”, which violates the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution and “will harm American children”.

Dr Gupta said his message would be that “it is not advisable to do that and they should refrain from doing it. They should listen to their obstetrician and see what she has to say about it. The primary concern should be the health of the mother and the child”.

He added that Trump’s executive order may not even stand in the court.

“The children born to illegal immigrants is another matter but people who are here legally on H1-B visas, I don’t think it will apply to them,” he said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)