This argument is proceding here with too little information to make any view viable. As ill-considered as her choice seems to have been, there is precedent regarding forced surgery--you can't do it (this harks back to involuntary sterilization). If the hospital was so sure the children were endangered, they needed merely to go to court to get an order regarding the emergency surgery. If they couldn't prove it was an emergency, then they couldn't get the court order. It looks like there are a lot of possibilities not yet highlighted in this case.

SRS