Woman forced to give birth in dirty jail cell and without assistance

[Destiny]

8 hours ago, Jody said:

She was treated for being a drug addict. She had to take methadone for withdrawal (btw, she was in jail for violence of some sort) and that can trigger early labor. She had already faked labor before. 

The staff should have intervened earlier. The mother should have used birthcontrol, stayed off drugs, stayed the fuck away from committing violence and getting locked up in the first place. The mother brought herself into this situation. In prison, people are busy and things can go wrong. Stay the fuck out of prison.

She was in jail for white collar crime, not that it matters. I frankly don’t give a fuck what she was in jail for. She could be there for anything and it would have had zero effect on my opinion. In fact, the fact that she was on methadone makes the fact that they did nothing even more horrifying. I know little of birth and methadone, but I can’t imagine that being on it, or having been a drug user (assuming she was. I’m not terribly familiar with the potential uses for it outside of treating drug use) didn’t make that delivery high risk for the baby and the mother. The jail had a responsibility to take care of them both.

Victim blaming is a bad look. So is being a jerk to anyone who dares disagree with you. 

[Jody]

2 hours ago, Loveday said:

@Jody

 Saying this:

does not make it okay to then say all this:

You're victim-blaming. In a big way. Yes, it's her fault she's in prison. It is NOT her 'fault' she's pregnant, and it is NOT her 'fault' she's in labor and has to deliver her baby there. It's the responsibility of the staff--however 'busy' they are--to care for her properly. It's their fucking JOB. And shoving a pad under the door is not proper care, and you well know it. So don't give me that shit about 'the staff should have intervened earlier.' Your next words tell me you didn't mean a word of that, no matter what you've posted since. 

Go ahead. Downvote me. I don't give a fuck.

I have a different opinion. I care about yours, I just don’t completely agree.

2 hours ago, nausicaa said:

1. I quoted multiple posts of yours in my original post. It's not just one post that's the problem...

2. You don't know why that poster downvoted you. I don't want to speak for SecularDaisy, but I sincerely doubt she was downvoting your loss, but rather the way you seem to think you get to police others' grief. Maybe it was by accident. Maybe she just doesn't like you. None of those things make her a "miserable excuse for a human being."

3. I didn't realize I was required to give condolences to you. Especially as I don't know you personally or the details of your story. I am also not speaking of your losses, but rather your attitude and interactions on this site. 

4. You did not just speak of your SIL. Look at your posts that I directly quoted above. You are speaking of everyone and do not clarify you only mean one person. You very clearly feel entitled to dictate the feelings of others. 

No, I do not dictate. No. If my post wasn’t clear enough about my SIL, ok. It still was about her. My attitude has always been gowards people having a healthy baby. I am still majorly pissed off that people think I feel that the baby does not deserve medical attention. BS. 

You are not required to give me condolences. Would not have misstood you though. 

[Jody]

3 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

For real? You don't dictate other people's feelings but if a pregnant woman dares to downvote a post where you were judging other people's ways to live and express pregnancy issues then you call her a miserable excuse for a human being. Got it. (ETA btw your post made zero references to your sil, zero references also in the following post where you reply to Hermione Sparrow)

As for the rest I won't discuss, you wouldn't understand because there's no person more deaf than the one who doesn't want to listen.

“As for the rest...” Come on, I have reacted in detail to your post. Saying you won’t reply because I won’t listen anyway is just cheap.

[Bad Wolf]

Fyodor Dostoevsky:  The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

[Destiny]

Fyodor Dostoevsky:  The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

So frighteningly true.

[formergothardite]

@Jody, would you like to discuss victim blaming? I think that is a big issue people have with your comment. You admit that they should have done more, yet still blame her? This is blaming her for being abused by the system. You can blame her for going to jail. She might even share blame in getting pregnant, but to place blame on her for being abused by a system is nothing but pure victim blaming. 

Feel free to explain how blaming someone when they are abused is not victim blaming. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

4 hours ago, Jody said:

“As for the rest...” Come on, I have reacted in detail to your post. Saying you won’t reply because I won’t listen anyway is just cheap.

Come on, I have already explained and pretty politely too. Your reply was calling me a "deranged fuck" because in your opinion I read in your words something that in your opinion wasn't there. And no you didn't "react in detail" you just said the equivalent of "no that's not what I said" and "I said they should have intervened earlier" (that btw means nothing, earlier when? 5 minutes earlier when both could have bled to death? Half an hour earlier when baby could have been stuck in mom's pelvis? 2 hours earlier when mom was terrified and screaming in pain and baby's heartbeat could have dropped in distress? 5 hours earlier when waters broke and there could have been meconium in it and they should have checked baby's position and vitals? When should have they intervened? Or maybe they should have treated her and her baby as human beings right from the start?). There's really no reason for me to explain again.

[mamallama]

I actually have some experience in this as I was a midwife in NYC.  We delivered many children of undocumented women and quite a few incarcerated women.  They delivered in a top notch (world class in many instances) hospital getting the same care as investment bankers, lawyers and doctors.  The only difference was that incarcerated women had to be shackled and we worked hard to make that as easy as it could be.  There is no excuse for what happened.  Many women have false alarms with the start of labor.  She could have been brought to a doctor or midwife, checked and sent back.  It is in no way acceptable to say someone is faking it.  

[Curious]

57 minutes ago, mamallama said:

It is in no way acceptable to say someone is faking it.  

Once her water broke it should have been obvious she wasn't faking it, as well. 

[Jody]

6 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Come on, I have already explained and pretty politely too. Your reply was calling me a "deranged fuck" because in your opinion I read in your words something that in your opinion wasn't there. And no you didn't "react in detail" you just said the equivalent of "no that's not what I said" and "I said they should have intervened earlier" (that btw means nothing, earlier when? 5 minutes earlier when both could have bled to death? Half an hour earlier when baby could have been stuck in mom's pelvis? 2 hours earlier when mom was terrified and screaming in pain and baby's heartbeat could have dropped in distress? 5 hours earlier when waters broke and there could have been meconium in it and they should have checked baby's position and vitals? When should have they intervened? Or maybe they should have treated her and her baby as human beings right from the start?). There's really no reason for me to explain again.

You are again avoiding discussing the point that I intimated the baby wasn’t worthy of care. I have told you in no uncertain ferms that that is not true. Where in my original post I would have said that, or implied that is something you can not answer. And you will not apologize. That’s BS.

[Mrs Ms]

11 minutes ago, Jody said:

You are again avoiding discussing the point that I intimated the baby wasn’t worthy of care. I have told you in no uncertain ferms that that is not true. Where in my original post I would have said that, or implied that is something you can not answer. And you will not apologize. That’s BS.

The mother also was

In 2019 being in prison is punishment, not withholding medical care 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Mrs Ms
More thoughts

[Jody]

8 hours ago, formergothardite said:

@Jody, would you like to discuss victim blaming? I think that is a big issue people have with your comment. You admit that they should have done more, yet still blame her? This is blaming her for being abused by the system. You can blame her for going to jail. She might even share blame in getting pregnant, but to place blame on her for being abused by a system is nothing but pure victim blaming. 

Feel free to explain how blaming someone when they are abused is not victim blaming. 

I feel that it is too easy to say that she is just a victim. She made quite a few bad choices that led to her being in jail. And whatever the fuck @laPapessaGiovanna thinks, I never once implied that either she or the baby do not deserve medical care. So let’s discuss my “victim blaming”. She got pregnant while on harddrugs. I’d choose not to do both at the same time. At some point in her life she wasn’t on drugs. That is when she should have arranged her birth control. She choose not to. She went to jail for a white dollar crime. It takes quite a few bad checks to get into jail. So she will have had chances before this to turn her life around. She chose not to. At some point she actually does get into jail and things go wrong. That’s why i said the staff should have intervened earlier. I remain that it would have been a beter situation for everybody if the mom had taken beter care of herself. She s in part to blame for getting herself in a situation where she had to give birth  in jail. She deserved better, but is bot blameless.

1 minute ago, Mrs Ms said:

The mother also was

Yes, le sigh, which is why I’ve said countless times that the staff should have intervened earlier. Read my replies to @laPapessaGiovanna end of last page. 

10 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

Fyodor Dostoevsky:  The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Do you live in America?

4 minutes ago, Mrs Ms said:

The mother also was

In 2019 being in prison is punishment, not withholding medical care 

 

1 hour ago, Curious said:

Once her water broke it should have been obvious she wasn't faking it, as well. 

Right, because I said she was faking it AFTER her waters broke ??. One of my friends is a volunteer for pregnant druggies, both in and out of jail. Faking birth symptoms is one of the most common ruses used to get out of your jail cell. This happend a 

lot and i fucking get that, i would-be want to be lockd up either.

[Jody]

14 hours ago, Jody said:

One post. Look at the others too please. I do find it weird that someone who is expecting her fifth is downvoting a post about loss. Thanks for your condolences by the way. 

Again and again, I do not dictate others feelings, i talked about my SIL. This does not reflect on other posters. 

Not being legally married while on methadone? I think i made it clear that you can’t be HAPPILY married while on drugs, but hey, i guess that’s just insane.

i called the fact that @laPapessaGiovanna said that I thought the baby did not deserve medical care complete and utter BS. I still do. Reading that into my post was completely fucked up. I repeatedly said: I do not agree with what happened, the staff should have intervened sooner. No fucking where in hell did I say the baby wasn’t worthy of care. Nowhere. To say that I wish ill upon an innocent child is fucking BS.

@Curious Funny that everyone just ignores the fact that according to @laPapessaGiovanna I wantend a baby to be harmed. I thought FJ had rules about talking about minors, i.e. no speculating about sexuality, tendencies for serial killing etc., but it’s apparently OK to accuse me of wanting to hurt a baby? 

[Curious]

17 minutes ago, Jody said:

I feel that it is too easy to say that she is just a victim. She made quite a few bad choices that led to her being in jail. And whatever the fuck @laPapessaGiovanna thinks, I never once implied that either she or the baby do not deserve medical care. So let’s discuss my “victim blaming”. She got pregnant while on harddrugs. I’d choose not to do both at the same time. At some point in her life she wasn’t on drugs. That is when she should have arranged her birth control. She choose not to. She went to jail for a white dollar crime. It takes quite a few bad checks to get into jail. So she will have had chances before this to turn her life around. She chose not to. At some point she actually does get into jail and things go wrong. That’s why i said the staff should have intervened earlier. I remain that it would have been a beter situation for everybody if the mom had taken beter care of herself. She s in part to blame for getting herself in a situation where she had to give birth  in jail. She deserved better, but is bot blameless.

Yes, le sigh, which is why I’ve said countless times that the staff should have intervened earlier. Read my replies to @laPapessaGiovanna end of last page. 

Do you live in America?

 

Right, because I said she was faking it AFTER her waters broke ??. One of my friends is a volunteer for pregnant druggies, both in and out of jail. Faking birth symptoms is one of the most common ruses used to get out of your jail cell. This happend a 

lot and i fucking get that, i would-be want to be lockd up either.

I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but you might want to remove it if you plan to get along on FJ.   I wasn't even talking about anything YOU said, you loon.  I quoted @mamallama and was responding to that.

You seriously need to chill the fuck out. 

5 minutes ago, Jody said:

@Curious Funny that everyone just ignores the fact that according to @laPapessaGiovanna I wantend a baby to be harmed. I thought FJ had rules about talking about minors, i.e. no speculating about sexuality, tendencies for serial killing etc., but it’s apparently OK to accuse me of wanting to hurt a baby? 

Oh FFS!  I get that there might be some kind of language barrier going on here, so at this point, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.  You don't have to be cranked up to eleventy!!!!!11!!! on every post you make.

This may be hard for you to understand, but if you deny the mother medical care you are also denying the fetus medical care.   

I'm quite certain nowhere in our rules do we talk about speculating on serial killers either.  Holy crap slow your damn roll and take a breath.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Curious
riffle

[Jody]

1 minute ago, Curious said:

I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but you might want to remove it if you plan to get along on FJ.   I wasn't even talking about anything YOU said, you loon.  I quoted @mamallama and was responding to that.

You seriously need to chill the fuck out. 

@laPapessaGiovanna accused me of wanting to see an innocent baby get hurt. I don’t chill the fuck out about that, obviously. As to the first question: what passes for your sense of humour. Want to get it back?

[Curious]

4 minutes ago, Jody said:

@laPapessaGiovanna accused me of wanting to see an innocent baby get hurt. I don’t chill the fuck out about that, obviously. As to the first question: what passes for your sense of humour. Want to get it back?

You said the mother had some responsibility for her situation.  The fetus goes where the mother goes.  If you suggest the mother has no worth, how does it square that the parasite she is carrying is more valuable than she herself is?    When the mother is denied medical care, so is the fetus.  They are a package deal.

You put a lot of things that you think are unacceptable at the feet of the mother.  You seem to think that you can't be [happily] married and on drugs and/or methadone.  I think it shows a lot of hubris for you to make that decision for all people.

I'm on drugs, albeit legal narcotics, and I'm happily married.  Are there only certain kinds of drugs you can't be on and be married?  She was apparently at least trying to get clean since she was on methadone, though she could be on it for something other than weaning off illicit drugs.  I don't presume to know her situation in life.

What I do know is that once she was put into jail the county had a DUTY to make sure she AND her fetus were receiving proper medical care.  Watching her labor for 5 hours on a monitor is NOT proper medical care.  She should have been transferred to a hospital once her water broke.

Prisoners have rights just like all other people...or they did until 2016

[Jody]

10 minutes ago, Curious said:

I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but you might want to remove it if you plan to get along on FJ.   I wasn't even talking about anything YOU said, you loon.  I quoted @mamallama and was responding to that.

You seriously need to chill the fuck out. 

Oh FFS!  I get that there might be some kind of language barrier going on here, so at this point, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.  You don't have to be cranked up to eleventy!!!!!11!!! on every post you make.

This may be hard for you to understand, but if you deny the mother medical care you are also denying the fetus medical care.   

I'm quite certain nowhere in our rules do we talk about speculating on serial killers either.  Holy crap slow your damn roll and take a breath.

FFS I keep saying the mother SHOULD have had medical care. 

Jesus Fucking Christ. Language barrier? Read my post and please quote where I said that the mother does not deserve care. It’s alright to accuse be of wanting a baby to get hurt, but questioning the choices the mother made is victim blaming? 

Pas for the serial killing: that speculation was going down in the Naugler thread, where I said it wasn’t cool to speculate about serial killing anymire than it was to speculate about a person’s sexual preferences.

[Destiny]

4 minutes ago, Jody said:

Pas for the serial killing: that speculation was going down in the Naugler thread, where I said it wasn’t cool to speculate about serial killing anymire than it was to speculate about a person’s sexual preferences.

You can say whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it a rule. You can say something bothers you and that’s fine, but don’t expect us to take action because you don’t like something.

[LacyMay]

I saw a really interesting quote a while ago and I can't remember it at all but it basically made the point that being imprisoned and the loss of freedom that comes with it is the punishment, anything over and above that (being denied medical care, baisic needs not being met etc) is basically over and beyond. it doesn't matter why someone is there they are entitled to adequate medical care. Full stop end of story. 

As for the rest of it... a lot of assumptions are being made here.

I guess yeah staying out of prison is always a good Plan A but "just stay out of prison" really isn't that simple when you consider that vulnerable populations (those with mental illness, visible minorities etc) are dramatically overrepresented in todays prison system. We don't know what led to her being where she is. It doesn't matter because as was already established she's still entitled to medical care. 

As for she should have used birth control because than this never would have happened... well my mom used birth control and here I am! I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone that birth control isn't 100% effective. Oh and it's also not always easily accessible. 

Saying that she should have just done this or she just shouldn't have done that takes some super complex issues and simplies them in a way that is either victim blaming or really ignoring the societal barriers faced by some people. 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2019 by LacyMay

[bal maiden]

53 minutes ago, Jody said:

She got pregnant while on harddrugs. I’d choose not to do both at the same time. At some point in her life she wasn’t on drugs. That is when she should have arranged her birth control. She choose not to.

It hasn't occurred to you that maybe someone in such a bad life situation as to be on hard drugs and faking cheques maybe, just possibly, didn't choose to get pregnant? There's this thing called rape, and it happens a lot more than you might think, especially to women in life situations that leave them vulnerable.  

Edited September 3, 2019 by bal maiden

[apandaaries]

When a lot of people are pointing out issues with one’s logic and reasoning, it’s often good to take many deep breaths and several steps back to reevaluate the situation.

People are responding harshly based on the huge number of embedded assumptions we have here. The US has a terrible rate of humans falsely imprisoned based on race and other stereotypes. The prison systems are inhumane, as videos of a woman birthing a baby alone in a filthy cell reveal. There is nothing to defend in this video.

[Jody]

24 minutes ago, apandaaries said:

When a lot of people are pointing out issues with one’s logic and reasoning, it’s often good to take many deep breaths and several steps back to reevaluate the situation.

People are responding harshly based on the huge number of embedded assumptions we have here. The US has a terrible rate of humans falsely imprisoned based on race and other stereotypes. The prison systems are inhumane, as videos of a woman birthing a baby alone in a filthy cell reveal. There is nothing to defend in this video.

I am breathing just fine, thank you. I find it fucking bullshit that posters on FJ do not want to read. I said the staff should have intervened earlier. I said both she and the baby deserve medical attention. Whatever the GODDAMN FUCK @laPapessaGiovanna wants to fanasize about, i don’t know, but denying a baby medical care has never entered MY head, only hers.

However, to paint her as a helpless victim is BS. She herself admitted to writing bad checks. So where does race come into that? Where do false accusations come into that?

I have been accused of wanting a baby to come to harm. No fucking way in hell am I going to accept the warped narrative that other people made of my post. Reading fucking shit into things that were not in my post.

so you’re basically telling me to ignore my OWN words and accept the story other people made of it and accept that. No. You have your opinion, I have mine. But I do not accept Reading complete BS like wanting a child to get hurt into my post. 

We  We probably will keep doing that on some topics, perhaps not on others.

@laPapessaGiovanna there is 

no excuse for your accusations. The fact that you KEEP IGNORING that part of your post means that you either don’t know how to apologize or you don’t care. Either way you are too cowardly to address your horrible BS. 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

3 hours ago, mamallama said:

The only difference was that incarcerated women had to be shackled and we worked hard to make that as easy as it could be. 

This breaks my heart. I can't think of labouring while restrained.

3 hours ago, mamallama said:

Many women have false alarms with the start of labor.  She could have been brought to a doctor or midwife, checked and sent back.  It is in no way acceptable to say someone is faking it. 

Thank you for saying this. A visit is quick and gives an accurate assessment of the situation. Just looking at a woman isn't enough. I was in moderate pain and very much still in control when I told the midwife (a great woman with lot of experience) that imho I was nearly there. She replied that it was too soon but visited me and immediately rushed me to the l&d room, baby was out less than half an hour later. A quick visit is all it takes.

[Jody]

1 hour ago, Curious said:

You said the mother had some responsibility for her situation.  The fetus goes where the mother goes.  If you suggest the mother has no worth, how does it square that the parasite she is carrying is more valuable than she herself is?    When the mother is denied medical care, so is the fetus.  They are a package deal.

You put a lot of things that you think are unacceptable at the feet of the mother.  You seem to think that you can't be [happily] married and on drugs and/or methadone.  I think it shows a lot of hubris for you to make that decision for all people.

I'm on drugs, albeit legal narcotics, and I'm happily married.  Are there only certain kinds of drugs you can't be on and be married?  She was apparently at least trying to get clean since she was on methadone, though she could be on it for something other than weaning off illicit drugs.  I don't presume to know her situation in life.

What I do know is that once she was put into jail the county had a DUTY to make sure she AND her fetus were receiving proper medical care.  Watching her labor for 5 hours on a monitor is NOT proper medical care.  She should have been transferred to a hospital once her water broke.

Prisoners have rights just like all other people...or they did until 2016

Comparing legal narcotics that you take responsibly (I hope you aren’t in pain often) to taking harddrugs like meth, heroin etc. is a bit too simple IMO. And no, if you’re on meth, I think you can not be happily married. I’ve seen quite enough relationships destroyed by harddrugs to say that, yes. If anyone has been on meth for the last year and still happily married, I would be interested to hear about how that dynamic works.

[Destiny]

You are missing the point. Once she was incarcerated, it was the RESPONSIBILITY of the jail to make sure she and the baby got proper medical attention. It doesn’t matter what she may or may not have done. Any drugs she may or may not have taken were irrelevant to that responsibility. (Though they may have made it even more dangerous for her to deliver unaided. I honestly don’t know.) NOTHING mitigates the responsibility the people who had her in their custody had to make sure that she, and by extension the baby, had medical attention. She could have murdered thousands and it wouldn’t matter. The jail had the responsibility to take care of them both the second she was in their care. It’s basic human decency. 

@laPapessaGiovanna, I’ve never given birth, but the idea of doing so shackled horrifies me too. I feel like there has to be a better way. 

 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Destiny
Fixing the messed up mention