Should a mom be jailed for her own stillbirth?

[2xx1xy1JD]

http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/s ... tillbirth/ (not breaking link because Kveller isn't a fundie site and doesn't mind the traffic)

ITA with the article.

If you take an objective look at the scientific evidence, the things that are most likely to harm to fetus (1) are not always illegal (alcohol is likely to cause more harm than pot, for example) and (2) the most serious harms often occur really early in pregnancy, when the major organs are first developing, and not later on when the baby is basically just getting bigger.

If you really want to focus on preventing harm, therefore, the key is to educate women on what is actually harmful, encourage pregnancies to be planned so that women get the prenatal nutrition they need and can plan to avoid harmful substances during the most crucial period, and make sure that women can access help that is available and that won't scare them away.

The other thing is that stillbirth and premature births happen to even the best moms, for reasons that are nobody's fault. Just because someone does something wrong does not mean that they CAUSED the stillbirth. I saw a situation first-hand in which a senior child protection official tried to blame a mom for the death of her premature twins, because she had a history of cocaine use. Guess what? She was already in jail at the time of the birth, so fetal protection laws that criminalize women would not have helped. Furthermore, the jail refused to cooperate in the investigation and the mom claimed that jail guards ignored her complaints when she went into premature labor and told her to get back to work. Premature labor is a risk with ANY twin pregnancy. So, not only is there no evidence that mom caused the deaths through drug use, but there is evidence that the SYSTEM actually caused the deaths through a misguided war on drugs and failure to provide proper care, and to top it all off, they were blaming a grieving mom.

[rward]

NONONONONONONONONONO.

Doctors can't even agree what's harmful in pregnancy. Coffee bad, coffee good, some coffee, only decaf, only regular, who knows? Recent studies have even shown that bed rest RAISES the risk of miscarriage rather than preventing miscarriage.

[RachelB]

I agree with the article that criminalizing addiction makes women who are already at risk for a difficult pregnancy much less likely to seek any kind of prenatal care.

[Rachel333]

Reminds me of the woman who was jailed for attempting suicide while pregnant. Really awful.

It does seem like this is the logical extension of a lot of the pro-life rhetoric.

[DrWhat]

NO WAY. In addition to the arguments above, there is simply no way to definitively determine the cause of a stillbirth.

[Green Glass]

I don't think anything like this would ever happen, because how could you possibly tell in every case what had caused the stillbirth? Not to mention the fact that it is the woman's body and doesn't cease to be so even when she is pregnant - not that fundies and people like them care. As much progress as we have in some areas of society, things seem to be going backwards in others.

[ILoveJellybeans]

No, of course not. Stillbirths are a very upsetting experience, and this would just make things worse. They also can sometimes happen to people who do everything right.

If they want to stop people doing things when pregnant that could harm their fetus, the answer would be to educate people about what can be harmful, and help people who have addictions that could harm their fetus to quit during pregnancy, not make them too afraid to have prenatal care or more likely to have an abortion (which is what people like this want to prevent)

It will also backfire on the fundies who would be supporting laws like this-it is incredibly likely that having so many babies was why Michelle Duggar had Josie so early, and why she miscarried Jubilee. A Quiverfull woman who didnt listen to doctors warnings about continuing to have babies because they were leaving it up to God, got pregnant again and had a stillbirth or miscarriage, or had a micropreemie who didnt live, could be prosecuted for that. I dont think theyve thought of that.

[dawbs]

I can't even articulate the depth why this infuriates me (although I'm fairly sure that you folks know :-P).

My story:

I get migraines. Not just every once in a while, I have 'persistent, chronic" migraines--meaning that they last, literally, months without end. The 'longest' one I've had lasted 9 months. For 9 months, there was never a moment that I wasn't in pain--sometimes a lot, sometimes a little (it would 'dial back' to what we referred to as 'background noise' pain at times), but it was constant.

My doctors didn't' like me being on migraine meds when I was TTC or PG. I did my research, I knew the numbers, and I tried to avoid the medications and it was impossible to (migraines come with nausea, so add constant migraine nausea to the 'normal' morning sickness nausea and I was hospitalized for dehydration repeatedly they worried I was going to be at greater risk w/ migraines than w/ meds--meds that had a .001% chance of POSSIBLY being related to a heart defect. ).

In spite of this, more than one doctor tried to 'encourage' me to avoid the meds and just soldier on through the pain. I explained to this man that the last time I tried to do that, I spent hours, every day, fantasizing about wrapping my car around a tree; I sought help once I started planning how I could wreck my car and have it look like an accident--and I wasn't going back to that place again.

I would have gone through anything to do the best I could for my kid...but my health had to be a part of the cost/benefit math too--and I found that only my husband and I were willing to do THAT math; that the medical establishment in this country (nevermind the busybodies of it) were quite willing to make me the sacrificial vessel.

[Jana814]

NO WAY. In addition to the arguments above, there is simply no way to definitively determine the cause of a stillbirth.

Agree!

[Freebird]

Prison is the last place that an addict needs to be. While I am certainly not for women taking illegal drugs while pregnant, it does sound like the woman has gotten the help that she needed, and is on the road to recovery.

[Minerva]

NONONONONONONONONONO.

Doctors can't even agree what's harmful in pregnancy. Coffee bad, coffee good, some coffee, only decaf, only regular, who knows? Recent studies have even shown that bed rest RAISES the risk of miscarriage rather than preventing miscarriage.

I know, right? Several cases of pregnant people being arrested/prosecuted under fetal homicide laws simply involve the person whose body it is disagreeing with their doctor over something doctors can't even agree on.

[MyNameIsJonas]

Reminds me of the woman who was jailed for attempting suicide while pregnant. Really awful.

It does seem like this is the logical extension of a lot of the pro-life rhetoric.

Bei Bei Shua? They've set her trial date for September. So tragic.

[Claddagh]

It sounds horrible to say, but sometimes rotten things happen. Criminalizing and jailing a woman for having a stillbirth is wrong and a terrible thing to do.

All this will do is make fewer women get checked out, causing more complications and problems for the mother and child.

If these people really wanted to help women there would be more education and working on finding what's the best and worst things for pregnant women. What causes stillbirths? What things could be done to prevent them? How could the mother be helped? All this is doing is punishing women.