Pregnant With Contradictions

July Swim for Distance Progress Report:  11,200 meters (about 6 1/4 miles)
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Hi, I'm Jen and I'm addicted to sugar.  (Chorus: "Hi, Jen."  Jen: "Hi.")  I'll bet some of you didn't know it was possible to be addicted to sugar, seeing as most of us ingest it in fairly large quantities every day and no harm seems to come to us.  But it is.  Check out this "60 Minutes" video or these news stories: New York Daily News, CBS News, National Institutes of Health. That said, though, you all know how addiction works, right?  You take a substance, maybe even only once, and you then discover to your dismay and chagrin that you now can't get along without that substance.  Something in your brain has fundamentally changed and without the substance, you not only can't function, you might get very sick and even possibly die.

This is why people who are addicted to substances will do ridiculous, illegal and even crazy things to get hold of the next dose of whatever it is they're addicted to.  Why they'll keep on taking a substance even though it's obviously causing problems in their lives, like causing them to lose their jobs or breaking up their marriages.  That guy who broke into your car and stole your stereo was probably addicted to something or other (car stereos have a very low resale rate, I'm given to understand, so it was probably something cheap, like crack).  And pregnant women, even if they know or suspect that whatever they're taking may be bad for the baby, will keep right on taking it.

Actually, in the case of pregnant women, it's even trickier.  Suddenly withdrawing from an addictive substance, like heroin or cocaine, can cause a miscarriage.  If you're pregnant and addicted to a substance, it's much better for you and your baby if you take maintenance doses of the substance.  Makes sense, right? Keep the mother stable, keep the baby stable, especially since addiction to opioids (ie, heroin, oxycontin, vicodin; the class of substances most commonly abused by pregnant women) hasn't been proven to cause any damage to the baby (or at least, the link between opioids and birth defects is "not well understood".)

You probably know where I'm heading with this.  Yep, the good ole state of Tennessee, which recently made it a crime to be a pregnant woman with a substance abuse problem.  In Tennessee,   prosecutors can now charge a woman with an "assaultive offense or homicide" if she takes illegal narcotics during her pregnancy, if "the child is born addicted, is harmed, or dies because of the drug." You'll note there's no standard of proof in there.  The state doesn't have to prove that the drug caused any kind of problem; it's basically a "because we said so" provision.  Lucky Mallory Loyola is the first woman to be arrested under the new law.  I think you should get some kind of prize if you're the first one to be arrested under a law.  Like, maybe free legal counsel, or something.

Now, let's ponder this.  There are 168 drug treatment centers in Tennessee (I looked it up).  Guess how many take pregnant women?  21. So less than 13% of drug treatment placements are available for pregnant women.  All the same, it's fine to toss them in jail if the state thinks the drugs might have harmed their newborns.  And what happens to the newborn while all this is going on? They're not staying with their mothers in jail; there's no nationwide policy in the United States that allows women to stay with their newborns if they're in prison, and Tennessee isn't one of the states running a pilot program that would let that happen.  So I guess the kid goes to foster care, or maybe to family members if DCS is feeling generous.

By the way, it's not illegal to smoke while pregnant.  It's not illegal to drink while pregnant. Both of those activities have been proven to cause actual harm to babies.  It's also not illegal to go skiing while pregnant, and while there aren't a lot of ski resorts in Tennessee, surprisingly there are a few, and you'd think they'd have at least thought about that while they were making it illegal to have a verified medical condition that most people can't do anything about without help (and see above re: how much help is available, ie, close to none.)

The ACLU is already challenging this law in court, and they have some pretty good precedent; no less than the Supreme Court of the United States told the state of California, way back in 1962, that it wasn't a crime to be a drug addict. And I'm gonna steal this whole paragraph from drugwarfacts.org:  "The prosecution of a pregnant drug-addicted woman infringes upon a woman’s right to privacy, as established in Roe v. Wade. In Roe, the Supreme Court held that the right to privacy, 'whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action ... or ... in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.' Advocates of the right to privacy contend that a woman does not lose her right to privacy simply because she becomes pregnant, and the constitutional right to privacy 'extends to both women and men, regardless of their biological differences.' Advocates therefore contend that because the Constitution does not differentiate among persons who are able to enjoy the right to privacy, the pregnant woman remains a 'person' as defined and protected under the Constitution. Hence, the State’s mechanisms — prosecution by child abuse, endangerment, controlled substance abuse, manslaughter, and homicide statutes — infringe upon a drug-addicted woman’s fundamental right to privacy because these mechanisms punish her simply for exercising her constitutional right to procreate."

You also can't treat pregnant women differently than nonpregnant women, or differently from men, under the law.  That pesky 14th Amendment. Astonishing as it may seem, pregnant women are human beings, and therefore persons.  If you don't believe that's so, ponder this: At what point in a pregnancy does a pregnant woman lose her civil rights?

Further, it's illegal to leak somebody's medical records under HIPPA.  So how did this woman get arrested in the first place?  If I were her lawyer, I'd look into whether any cause existed to arrest her at all, being as the evidence was obtained illegally.  Good thing I'm not a lawyer, though, because I'd take all the cases like this, never get paid, get burned out, quit on the whole human race and drive my Lincoln into the San Diego Bay from the top of the Bay Bridge, if I still lived in San Diego, which I do not.

I think I said that in another blog post. Well, so sue me.

Somebody Find Toto

Well, ya cain't say I didn't warn ya.  It was on this spot right here, only a few short months ago, that I told you what would be happening after pregnant women were banned from all the big cities.  Being caught in a metropolis with a bun in the oven will lead to an immediate charge of felonious breathing, as I think Margaret Atwood would call it.  Or reckless endangerment through inhalation of toxic gases.  Imagine, having the nerve, the unremitting gall to walk through New York or Boston or San Francisco, while pregnant, and knowingly inhale air known to be toxic to fetuses.  No different than Utah's skiing-while-pregnant ban or Florida's preborn human sun exposure law.  Nope.  We're having no more of these scandals.  I'm sorry, but that's it.  We're just gonna send them all to Kansas.

Why?  Because pregnant women are irresponsible and only take their own selfish feelings and demands for liberty into consideration.  Because in spite of all the scientific evidence that says women only exist as containers for preborn babies, there's always one or two that have to hop up and down and squawk about their "personhood" and their "rights."  Because Kansas is the only place that's safe.  Sorry, everybody in Wichita and Topeka and Olathe, but you're going to have company.  A lot of it.  For the  next nine months.

Think of it.  Millions of women packed onto Greyhound buses without a nay-say or maybe as soon as that little stick turns blue.  Shipped from around the country to the safest state in the Union (unless there's a tornado).  No skiing, no surfing, no sunbathing, no sex or drugs or alcohol.  (Well, there is that little crystal meth problem, but we'll get rid of that; we'll just jack up the sentences for possession and manufacturing and everybody'll be scared and, you know, just stop making and selling the stuff.) Nine months of perfect safety for the fetuses and their containers and then all the babies will be born healthy!  And that's what we want, isn't it?

Ah, perhaps you think I exaggerate. Or perhaps you think I'm off my proverbial rocker.  Well, you could be right about that second thing, but I'm afraid I am not exaggerating.  Take a look at this lawsuit, recently filed in Federal Court by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (and ponder, for a moment, why we even need such an advocacy.  Get back to me on that, will you?) Go down to the first orange link on the page.  Then read that sucker.  Yes, I know it's fifty-odd pages long. Read it anyway.  If you're anything like me, you won't be able to put it down.

Brief recap of the facts:  Alicia Beltran, a woman and, by definition, a human being, sought prenatal care at a local clinic in Milwaukee.  She confidentially told the doctor that she had been treated for prescription drug abuse and had been taking Suboxone, a pain medication.  She'd stopped taking it because she found out she was pregnant.  A few days later, five policemen came to her house and arrested her.  She was handcuffed, shackled and taken to a court hearing that she knew nothing about. An attorney had been appointed to represent the interests of her 14-week-old fetus.  (I am not making this up.  It's all in the lawsuit.  Go back and read it again.)  There was, however, no attorney appointed to represent Alicia Beltran, the living, breathing, already born woman.  With no testimony from any medical experts whatsoever and with Ms. Beltran not allowed to speak, the judge ordered her involuntarily committed to an inpatient drug treatment program two hours away from her family.  She has been a prisoner there since July 13, 2013.

Now, let's consider this for a second.

It is not illegal to take a prescription drug.

It is not illegal to refuse medical treatment.

It is not illegal to seek another medical opinion.

It is illegal for a doctor to release information about a patient without that patient's consent to a third party.  The law that governs that kind of conduct is called HIPPA.  It is also highly unethical for a doctor to release information given to him or her under the doctor-patient privilege, which is what happened here.

It is illegal to use intimidation or threats under color of authority, such as sending a social worker to someone's house and threatening that someone with losing custody of her children, to get that person to do something that you want. It was illegal for the doctor to send the social worker out there and it was illegal of the social worker to go.

It is very very illegal to kidnap a woman from her house, haul her away in chains, and lock her up someplace.  Yet somehow, Alicia Beltran needs a Federal lawsuit to get her out of a situation that never should have happened in the first place.

I can hear some of you thinking.  (Psychic powers.  I has 'em.)  And what I can hear some of you thinking is along the lines of "But what if she relapses and goes back on the drugs?  That would be bad for her baby, so it's better if she stays locked up until she gives birth."

Really?

Really?

Okay. Let's try this.  Somebody grabs you off the street, shackles you, throws you into a car, drives you to what's obviously a prison and surrounds you with police officers.  After several hours you finally get into what looks like a courtroom and there's a judge and you think, "Oh thank God, now we can clear up this mix-up," because obviously there's been one, right?  And then the judge winks at the guys who kidnapped you and says, "It's okay, boys.  She's pregnant."

Guess what.  Illegal behavior is illegal behavior whether the victim is pregnant or not.  Kidnapping is illegal,  Being addicted to a substance is not illegal.  Trying to quit the addictive substance on your own, without some nice rehab counselor holding your hand every step of the way, is not illegal.

No one ever offered any evidence that Alicia Beltran was using drugs.  No one tested her for drug use.  No one, as far as I can tell, even bothered to ask her, "Hey.  Pop any Suboxone today?"  Even if they had, though, that wouldn't justify anything that happened.  Again, being a drug addict is not illegal.

In fact, the law treats pregnant people and nonpregnant people almost exactly the same way.  There are a few exceptions for pregnant people who are under 18, but not many.  It is legal for a pregnant woman to drink.  It is legal for a pregnant woman to go skiing.  It is legal for a pregnant woman to go skydiving, go Rocky Mountain climbing, go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.  And it is illegal for a pregnant woman to do drugs, only insofar as it's illegal for anyone else to use drugs.

Believe me, if we could outlaw stupid behavior, we'd need enough prisons to fill the entire state of Texas.

It burns me up that more news agencies aren't following this story.  Why CNN and NBC aren't pounding on the doors of Casa Clare, demanding to speak to Alicia Beltran.  Why isn'lt Amnesty International protesting outside on the sidewalk? Where's the ACLU, when you really need them? Why aren't sixteen helicopters circling that rehab facility 24/7, demanding to know what the hell is going on? Because the last time I Googled it - 30 seconds ago - I found one story on Reuters and it was under a headline about Democrats and the shutdown.

Well, I intend to make some noise.  Do what I can to get some attention.  Send this blog post to people I know who will give a damn and might even write about it.  I may be a Buddhist with a Nook at a table at Afrah, but by God, you don't want to piss me off. I type mean when I'm mad.
 

Talk Thursday: So I Have To Ask...

This week's Talk Thursday topic practically cries out for me to ask all those questions that I never get answers to in the real world. It's also a great way to procrastinate if you're finished with your line edits, the 'script is more or less ready to go except for those thorny subreferences to the New England Patriots that you can't decide if you should cut or not, but you somehow haven't quite mustered the courage to type up the query letter and send it to the editor who asked for it over a month ago. (Hey, I'm only three weeks late. I'll have it out by the end of July. To do anything else would no doubt incur the wrath of Aunt Sally. Or worse, Jackie. Shudder.)

So, anyway, here's my question du jour to which I won't get an answer in the real world: Why is Texas the homicidal-mother capital of the United States? I mean, lots of parents must go berserk and murder their offspring, but why is it always the Texas cases that end up on CNN? Andrea Yates (drowned five, not guilty by reason of insanity, stuck in a mental hospital for the duration). Dena Schlosser (cut arms off of her infant daughter with a carving knife, not guilty by reason of insanity, same story as Andrea Yates.) Darlie Lynn Routier (stabbed her two boys to death, guilty of capital murder, on death row). Deanna Laney (bludgeoned three sons to death with rocks, not guilty by reason of insanity, stuck in a mental hospital for the duration.)

I'm asking this question because we had two (count 'em, two) homicidal mothers this week in Texas, which is probably some kind of a record. The first one was an Irving mom who strangled both her kids, allegedly because they were autistic and she wanted normal children (you can bet that 911 tape gets played in court a few dozen times). The second was the mayor of Coppell, a bedroom community north of Dallas, who shot her 19-year-old daughter in the head and then killed herself. The first case was just your garden-variety tragic. The second one was downright weird, and keeps getting weirder as the tangled skein continues to play out.

Besides embezzling from the City with her municipal credit card, Ms. Peters was evidently about to lose her house to foreclosure. Her husband had died the year before, she was behind on a number of bills, and her daughter thought she was going to UT in Austin. I say "thought" because even though she told all her friends that she was going to UT, there's no record of her ever applying, much less enrolling. This kid was apparently under the impression that her mom had filled out the college applications for her, found her a post at UT and was paying for everything. Uh, not so much.

But wait. It gets even weirder. Ms. Peters gave her daughter a new car to take to college with her. Where did she get the money for the car? Uh, she didn't. It was a rental. That's right, Mom rented a car and passed it off to her daughter as a gift. Hands up who thinks that's pretty weird. Yep, I see a lot of hands. I mean, this whole scheme had to unravel sooner or later, right?

Well, apparently it did. They're both dead, after all. But things get weirder still. All the newspapers and most of the TV news channels are running stories on this whole deal like it's just a "senseless tragedy." Uh, hello. It was a MURDER. Sure, the murderer killed herself right after the crime, but that doesn't change the fact that a mom killed her kid. Why are people going on and on about how troubled she must have been, how she should have sought help, how she must have felt all alone in the world? I personally don't give a ripe fuck how alone you feel in the world. Killing people is not cool. It violates the First Precept, fergodsake, and it's the First Precept so you won't forget it. (Nobody ever forgets the first item on a list. They forget the fourth or fifth item. There's been studies.) It's like the whole state of Texas, home of the phrase "hang 'em all and let God sort 'em out", the only state in the Lower 48 with an express lane in front of the gas chamber, has just sort of gone out to lunch on this one.

And I don't get it. So I have to ask: If Andrea Yates had killed herself after offing her five kids, would we have lowered all the flags in Houston to half-mast? Or do they only do that if the homicidal child-killing maniac is the mayor?

Here's the weirdest part of all: The family threw Ms. Peters and her daughter, Corrine, a joint funeral. Gotta love that. Just for the record, if somebody knifes me to death, I want my own fucking funeral. I do NOT want to share it with the knife wielding psycho, even if it is my mom. (Incidentally, hi, mom! Been around any sharp objects lately?) I'm just sayin'.