I was shocked to read in the Guardian today of the sentencing of mothers to prisons in the U.S. Mothers who have lost their babies either pre- or post-birth on suspicion of drug use or in one case attempted suicide by ingesting rat poison.
An example of the increasing insanity of not granting women full autonomy with their uteri under the sole ownership and direction of the government:
Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
And there are many more mind boggling charges in this disturbing article. Read it here.
More and more as the US descends into a madness barely touched upon by Dante, my heart breaks for my many USian friends who are so sickened by all of this.
We may have thought Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" outrageous when first published but another read now makes it eerily prophetic.
Theocorporatocracy.
Your post led me to some research and I am as appalled as you are that the justice system is not delivering justice. I too am wondering what is wrong with the USA? Is it any less barbaric than the Islamic justice system where women are concerned?
ReplyDeleteWe do seem to be going backwards. In some ways, I'm glad I'm almost done here.
ReplyDeleteit is sickening , the world is getting more and more insane. Yesterday i was watching something about those prisons for profit thing that is going on and the billions of dollars that go into lobbying to fill those prisons up. The war on Women is ratcheted up...taking away healthcare and access to birth control and counseling , going after education and it just goes on and on. I don't trust our government either with its tough on crime meme and many other things. We have to be vigilant...a lot of these insane laws get past on the sly and a lot of people don't pay attention until it is to late or it directly affects them.
ReplyDeleteThey'll not be satisfied until we're back in feudal times.
ReplyDeleteIt'll have to get worse before the worm turns though WWW. It takes a lot to wake the dreamers here, because they simply don't want to wake up for fear of what they'll find and be called upon to do.
Depraved-heart murder? I'd never heard of that one, had to google it. Seems to be the equivalent of gross negligence manslaughter in the UK. Although the law has been applied to post-birth deaths I don't think it's ever been used for pre-birth deaths.
ReplyDeleteEven if a woman is negligent over a baby's death, prison is obviously not the answer, clearly what she needs is some kind of practical help. As for the mandatory life sentence - totally insane.
I find this too disgusting for words. I hope there is a massive public outcry. It sounds like the dark ages when women were burned at the stake for witchery.
ReplyDeleteI so agree with what Nora said, this has got so out of hand. Why do they have to make everything so political there, my gosh we are talking about women taking control of their own bodies. I had thought we had come so much further than this....:-)Hugs
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party, with all its talk of freedom and the Constitution, will have our personal lives and our bodies all under government control if they have their way. And they are sending their message your way too. I read that religious fanatics are gaining ground in Canada these days. Is it true?
ReplyDeleteWe should have let the South secede.
ReplyDeleteFar too harsh, yes. But in Britain, people seem to get away with no accountability for their actions whatsoever. In fact the more they mess up, the more society throws money at them, rather than getting them to accept responsibility for their actions/lives (and punishing them justly when they commit an actual crime).
ReplyDeleteThat's insane! Although I live in Kentucky, I have heard nothing about it. Thanks for posting this; I'm writing to my senators, congressmen and anyone else I can think of. If the Republicans and that disgusting tea party keep on, women will have no rights left!
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