I found out about this through foreign channels..., and in a world that actually made any sort of sense, the country that supposedly lives, dies, bleeds, and certainly screams a lot about its credo of individual freedom and true democracy and rights for all, this horror would be occurring in a foreign country. Not in the USA. But nope, this is the USA.
Attribution:
a pregnant Russian woman's blog,
Natalia Antanova...
and since I've been in the UK,
The Guardian.
Although apparently at least ABC and
The Daily Beast have reported on this as well. I recommend Jennifer Block's article for The Daily Beast, it's well-written and well-reported.
What, what, what am I talking about?
I wish I knew. Apparently a bunch of men always know what's best and have decided that putting suicidal women in prison for life is going to accomplish some purpose. What purpose? Deterring other women from killing themselves? From personal experience, the threat of life in prison isn't probably going to deter suicide. Hell, it doesn't seem to deter much of anything really, but suicidal people are incredibly self-involved and not thinking that far in advance.
Oh well, PREGNANT women will be more self-aware, because, you know, they are all glowing with love for their fetus and don't have any problems and only truly evil ones must be punished and kept away from the rest of us (as a danger to everyone????).
Yes, the state of Indiana is trying to put away a woman for life because she attempted to kill herself while pregnant. Other woman have been charged similarly because they used drugs while pregnant. So, hey! If you're an addict and somehow got knocked up, you had best go overdose -- and do it right -- because if you take drugs you'll be charged with murder. And if you seek help to end your addiction -- because, maybe you do care about the fetus -- you will be thrown in jail and charged with endangering a life.
In the Indiana woman's case, it's looking as if her medical attention may have been not all that well-executed. She was recovering from poisoning herself and the hospital insisted on a caesarian that the fetus did not survive from. But hey -- she should have known better. Because all pregnant women should be absolute medical experts and know when a c-section and premature birth will kill their baby or not. So she's clearly responsible. But, maybe she's not, in which case, the state had damn well better hold that doctor responsible. And the friends who took her to the hospital, and the nurses, and the poor janitor who cleaned that room and didn't tell the doctor not to do a c-section. But absolutely not the hospital administration. And why on earth did the hospital contact law enforcement anyway? Oh, maybe because they fucked up and this is a really easy way for them to not have to take any responsibility? Let's hope she sues for some malpractice too. May as well, it's the American way.
There are so many places to go with this. If you eat sugar while pregnant and inadvertently expose your child to coming out diabetic, is that negligence? If you're so depressed that you end up taking anti-depressants to prevent suicidal thoughts, then you should be charged with, I don't know, negligence and being imperfect? What if you miss a doctor's appointment? What if you don't take pre-natal vitamins? What if you
fall down the stairs?
Hell, I am in my child-bearing years still. Let's go all
Handmaid's Tale here and lock me up until I give birth at some point. Because before that happens, I might harm myself, kill myself or otherwise, just plain get harmed by someone else (in which case, shouldn't they be charged with attempted feticide? pre-feticide?)
I am completely pro-choice, for so many reasons but one of which is I DO NOT have the right to judge anybody's circumstance. Maybe that actually comes from my Christian upbringing because Jesus was pretty clear about no human being able to judge another. But considering the alliance of the anti-choicers with the actively religious, particularly Christian... well, they are sinners too and I guess they keep forgetting this one.
All societies have penal systems for various reasons but there is something really twisted with America's. For one, we have more people in jail, in numbers and per capita, than any other country in the world. That includes China. Repressive, better be scared of them, China.
And we spend a lot of money on incarceration. I haven't heard one peep of a debate about state and federal budgets trying to deal with how much we spend on putting people in jail and keeping them there. It's A LOT. Reporting on this is another article.
Kevin and I just hung out in a smallish city that is s regional center -- Dothan, Alabama, peanut capital of the world. We were here for a couple days while he photographed for
Inc. Magazine. Yesterday was Easter, and Dothan, being in the Bible Belt, was definitely not open for business. Even the fast food chain restaurants, for the most part, were closed. We usually try to find something local -- to support local businesses and to just have the experience of interacting with the city we are in. Although we knew it was unlikely to work out, we took a drive into downtown Dothan to see if there were any restaurants open for dinner.
We didn't find any restaurants, open, or otherwise, really. But, as I've noticed is often the case in towns all across this country, we easily found the jail and the courthouse. They are absolutely the most impressive buildings in Dothan. To be fair, I haven't seen all of Dothan, but I drove the main drag, I've driven the highway, I've driven several side streets and checked out a very nice park. I feel I can say that by virtue of size and money spent on construction, whether they realize it or not, Dothan's residents are most proud of their jail.
The things a society cares most about will be made obvious by what is most visible - that which receives the most money and consideration. And, in America, we seem to love our prisons.
Given that love, it's logical that we'd want to put more people into them. Like pregnant suicidal women.
It's not America the brave, it's America the incarcerated. And that needs to change.
