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The new Jane Crow: How hundreds of pregnant women have had their rights violated & health put in jeopardy as part of the war on choice
February 4, 2013

Regina McKnight was 21 years old when she was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison for homicide by child abuse—after she suffered a stillbirth eight-and-a-half months into her pregnancy.

The jury deliberated only 15 minutes before finding McKnight guilty of having committed “child abuse”—because of using cocaine during her pregnancy. She went to jail, and one appeals court after another upheld the conviction—until it was finally overturned eight years later on the grounds that the scientific evidence used to claim McKnight’s drug use was responsible for the stillbirth was “outdated” at the time of her trial.

Laura Pemberton was arrested while she was in active labor—for attempting to give birth at home, rather than undergo a C-section advised by her doctor. A sheriff strapped her legs together and took her to the hospital, where, at an emergency hearing, lawyers argued on behalf of her fetus. Pemberton and her husband were denied counsel during this hearing, though they were “allowed to express their views” as hospital staff prepared Pemberton for surgery.

These stories aren’t scenes out of some horror movie about a nightmarish future society. They are real-life accounts from the war on women and their rights that has been underway since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

In a new report titled “Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973–2005,” the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) summarizes the experiences of 413 women who have been subjected to cruel punishments or unwanted medical procedures while they were pregnant.

No state or federal law permits the arrest or detention of women specifically due to pregnancy. Yet hundreds of pregnant women—predominantly low-income women and women of color—have had their rights taken away and their health put in jeopardy because police, prosecutors, judges and even medical personnel have claimed the authority to determine what will happen to their bodies. Lynn Paltrow, one of the authors of the NAPW study, calls this phenomenon “a new Jane Crow”—in reference to author Michelle Alexander’s best-selling examination of the mass incarceration system.

The crusade against women’s reproductive rights has been led by politicians and organizations which claim to cherish the “right to life” and champion women’s role as mothers. But the reality made painfully clear by the NAPW’s report is that the anti-choice right wants women to be treated as second-class citizens, denied the right to health care, personal liberty and the right to control their own bodies and lives.

Report authors Lynn Paltrow and Jeanne Flavin say their study understates the number of incidents of incarceration or forced medical intervention against pregnant women in the decades following Roe.

No one has attempted to compile these stories before, and records of the cases are either scattered among different sources or nonexistent altogether. Often, say Paltrow and Flavin, hospital staff impose unwanted procedures without the involvement of state authorities. Plus, the decisions of family and juvenile courts are kept confidential. So the number of victims is likely to be many times greater than the 413 cases verified by the NAPW in its rigorous study.

Nonetheless, the patterns of punishment described in the report paint a frightening picture of the consequences of the right’s campaign against reproductive freedom.

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What “crimes” were committed by the pregnant women whose stories are told in the NAPW report?

In the cases the report documents, women were most often targeted not for attempting to end a pregnancy, but for attempting to carry one to term. The main reason for arrest and detention was drug use during pregnancy, but in other cases, women were punished because they suffered from sexually transmitted diseases or mental illness while pregnant. Others wanted to deliver at home, refused C-sections or failed to access prenatal care.

In several cases, women were charged with one or more felonies after they suffered a miscarriage or attempted to end a pregnancy on their own. And in one case, state prosecutors used the fact that a woman had refused an offer of sterilization in support of its charges. This case, in particular, strikes an old and deep wound, following decades of forced sterilizations of Black, Latina, Native American and immigrant women.

In all, just over half of the women whose stories are collected in the report are Black. Nearly three quarters of those facing legal charges were represented by indigent defense.

African American women have suffered a long legacy of barbaric discrimination—from the separation of families under slavery to the early 20th century eugenics movement that pushed through laws in 32 states allowing the sterilization of women judged “unfit to breed.”

Today, poor Black single mothers are scapegoated for all manner of social problems. In particular, the war on drugs has served as a vehicle for the attack, with drug convictions serving as the excuse for terminating parental rights of incarcerated mothers.

Meanwhile, the media have whipped up a moral panic over drug use during pregnancy. Thus, cocaine was the drug most often associated with the criminal charges against pregnant women documented in the NAPW report. But health professionals now recognize that cocaine use during pregnancy poses no more significant risk to fetal health than poor nutrition, lack of prenatal care or other factors commonly suffered by the poor.

In fact, in most of the cases documented in the report, authorities didn’t claim that fetuses had been harmed, only that there was a risk of harm. And even when actual harm was alleged, in most cases, there was no scientific evidence or expert testimony to substantiate the claim.

For example, Geralynn Susan Grubbs, a 23-year-old woman in Alaska, was threatened with 30 years imprisonment and therefore pled guilty to a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide in connection with the death of her two-week-old infant. Prosecutors claimed that drug use during pregnancy had caused the infant’s death—this allegation was allowed to stand even after an autopsy revealed that there was no connection between the death of the child and fetal drug exposure.

Such punishment flies in the face of the recommendations of the medical community. Organizations like the American Medical Association have concluded that criminalizing drug use by pregnant women only discourages women from seeking prenatal care and assistance with their addiction.

Nonetheless, Paltrow and Flavin document how threats of arrest or loss of custody lead some pregnant women with drug problems to avoid medical attention, prenatal care and hospital deliveries altogether. In one particularly absurd case, 34-year-old Alma Baker was prosecuted for dealing drugs to a minor—after she gave birth to twins who tested positive for THC, a chemical found in marijuana. Baker stated that if she realized the risk of criminal charges, she would not have gone to her doctor at all.

Alma Baker is white, which makes her case highly unusual among those documented in the NAPW report. Women of all races use drugs at rates roughly equivalent to their numbers in the overall population—yet overwhelmingly those questioned, screened and punished for drug use related to pregnancy were African American.

Full article

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The first ever Poutine Week in Montreal is a citywide no-holds-bar showdown between 30 restaurants, in which novices and masters are pitted against one another in the quest for poutine perfection. (Think of it as the Canadian answer to Nacho Week.)

Among those competing, a good third are sticking with the classic recipe for the gravy and cheese-curd covered french fry dish, with only a few tweaks here and there. Others are exploring the recipe outside of convention. Some of the ingredients being added to nouveau versions include creamed corn, pulled pork, and roasted root vegetables. There is a breakfast poutine with fried egg, and an organic lamb shank poutine with edible flower petals. 

The result is an eye-opening mix of flavors and influences. As one organizer explains, “Poutine Week aims to recognize poutine’s place in the city’s social fabric—and to get people out of their old fast-food habits.”

The real winners of the competition are diners who get to try each participating restaurant’s poutine—all dishes are priced between $5-10—as well as the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation. A portion of the proceeds will go to the organization.

Poutine Week launched this past weekend and will run until February 7. 

[via The Gazette]

The Reykjavik District Court has ruled that a 15-year-old Icelandic girl can legally use the first name "Blaer," reversing a contrary decision by government officials. Iceland has strict naming laws that require, among other things, that names fit standard grammar and pronunciation rules and be gender-appropriate. According to the report, the relevant committee refused to approve Blaer Bjarkardottir's first name because she is a girl and the panel viewed the name as "too masculine."

To date, the government has referred to the girl only as "Girl."

Blaer's mother (a Bjork) says she didn't know the name wasn't appropriate when she assigned it to Girl, presumably at birth. Girl, as noted, is now 15, and it's not entirely clear how long this fight has been going on. She could have been under the government's radar for a while, but at the very least a red flag went up when she applied for a passport, because the report says the one she has now identifies her as "Stúlka Bjarkardottir." (Stúlka means "girl" in Icelandic.) So there has clearly been at least one failed attempt to have Girl recognized as Blaer, or to have Blaer declared an approved form of girlish nomenclature.

The government committee that thinks Blaer is a dumb name is called the Mannanafnanefnd, which is either a bunch of letters chosen at random or Icelandic for "Personal Names Committee." This webpage has a mannanafnaskrá, or "personal-name looker-upper" (I'm winging it here on the Icelandic), so that new parents can just type the mannanafni they want into the mannanafnaskrá to see if the Mannanafnanefnd has approved it. The page also provides lists of previously approved names for handy reference.

If you have a stúlka, you may choose from any number of thoroughly feminine names such as "Anita," "Barbára," "Bjork," "Bogey," "Droplaug," or "Steinborg." If you have a drengur, then manly names like "Atlas," "Thor," "Jenni," "Nonni," or "Oddbergur" are available, or most masculine of all, "Bambi." If the name is not on the list, for 3000 kronor (US $23.75) the committee will analyze the name for you to see if it's acceptable. (There is also a list of previously rejected names, which includes "Randy" for girls and "Baltazar," "Diego," and "Lusifer" for boys.)

Cannot legally be called "Oddbergur"

"Blaer" is on the approved list for boys, but that did not help Girl, who is a girl. After the panel refused to make an exception or rule that "Blaer" was at least as feminine as "Droplaug," Girl and Girl's Mother took their case to the district court.

According to the report, the court's ruling was based on evidence that "Blaer" in fact is already used by both males and females in Iceland, but also that Girl had a right to her own name under both Iceland's constitution and the EU's human rights laws. If those last two arguments hold up (and it's not clear yet whether the government will appeal), that could spell the end of the naming laws, it seems to me. Which I guess would be good news for whoever wanted to name their kid "Lusifer," although bad news for that kid.

Whatever we may think of the country's naming laws, Iceland gets some respect from me because their word for "email address" is the totally awesome netfang, which the rest of the world should start using immediately.

For once the dude with the hatchet is the good guy.

The dude, identified only as "Kai," said a driver who had given him a ride near Fresno began claiming to be Jesus—generally a good time to ask your driver to pull over—and then suddenly rammed into a utility worker standing next to his truck. The driver then got out and started trying to move the injured worker, and became furious when bystanders tried to stop him. "He just kept saying he's Jesus Christ and he's going to save all of us," said one woman who intervened, "but we have to get [African-Americans] off the earth."

If the attempted vehicular manslaughter hadn't already proven this wasn't Jesus, his selective approach to salvation would have pretty much clinched it.

The driver then grabbed the woman and wrapped her in a bear hug, which was when Kai sprang into action, believing the woman was in danger. You really should watch the short news clip below so you can hear Kai tell the story himself. (They bleeped where appropriate, so it's safe for work.)

 

"Smash! Smash! Suh-MASH!" (at 1:40) A new American hero is born.

The crash broke both the worker's legs, but his injuries were not life-threatening. The driver, who was in fact identified as someone other than Jesus, is being held on suspicion of attempted murder. Despite having been subdued with a hatchet, his injuries were also said to be non-life-threatening.

I still would not recommend picking up a hitchhiker who is waving a hatchet, but if you must do so I hope it turns out to be Kai.

Through-The-Big-Lens has added a photo to the pool:

Yet another dogfight over a short eared's prey. I swear, the harriers aren't catching any of their own, just poaching from the short eared owls.

A showing in Rome is postponed until after the Feb. 24 national election.

Teachers said they hoped that if the girls focused on cleaning up their speech on campus for a month, their improved manners would take hold and rub off on the boys.

For future reference.

Sometimes the disinterest with which the Globe arts staff views its hometown is almost embarrassing.
Just a few weeks ago, a seemingly ignorant Jeffrey Gantz innocently gave away the big reveal at the core of the Huntington's Our Town.  And in today's paper, Jeremy Eichler actually reviews a performance that wasn't there, in last night's Handel and Haydn rendering of Purcell's The Indian Queen.
Eichler gives the concert a good notice (a surprise, as he has often sniffed at H&H), and I'd agree in general with his assessment - you should go see the last performance, at Sanders Theatre this Sunday.
The odd thing about the review, however, is that it praises a singer who wasn't there. The lovely and talented Teresa Wakim (at left) is a mainstay of Boston's vocal scene - indeed, she is one of its leading sopranos, whom I've reviewed or mentioned 15 times in the last four years. She has sung at Handel and Haydn, Boston Baroque, Blue Heron - in fact almost everywhere.
Alas, illness prevented her from singing at Handel and Haydn last night.   But Jeremy Eichler seems to think she did anyway!  In his review, he announces that "Teresa Wakim sang with crystalline tone and graceful musicality."  So apparently poor Ms. Wakim was warbling with crystalline tone through a bout with the flu.
An honest mistake, you say, easily explained by his not reading (or not receiving) a program insert? Not really - although that probably contributed to the flub.  For Wakim was actually replaced by three different members of the Handel and Haydn chorus - Sonja Tengblad, Jessica Cooper and Brenna Wells, all accomplished singers in their own rights, took over the various solos she would have sung.
So did Eichler somehow not notice that three different ladies marched downstage at various times to take over Wakim's duties at different junctures? Did only one of them impress him? Or did he think they were all named Teresa Wakim?  Enquiring minds want to know!
Sigh.  I don't know what's more depressing: that Jeremy Eichler is so out of touch with our classical music scene that he doesn't know who Teresa Wakim is (which would basically be like my not knowing who Karen MacDonald is) - or that he was so disconnected from the performance in front of him that he never scanned it against the cast list in the program.
All I can say - Teresa, you sound even better when you're actually singing!
So get well soon, my dear! The Hub Review, the guide to everything that matters in Boston and elsewhere.

Through-The-Big-Lens has added a photo to the pool:

Yet another dogfight over a short eared's prey. I swear, the harriers aren't catching any of their own, just poaching from the short eared owls.

Through-The-Big-Lens has added a photo to the pool:

A balletic position, as they tangled for the vole, just partially seen between them.

On the northern side of the Moskwa River, near the Kremlin, there stands the world's tallest Orthodox Christian Church, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It looks centuries old, but it was just built in 2000. For the second time. Here's how it happened. More »

Polyandry occurs when, for whatever reason, a society emerges where women are permitted to marry more than one man at the same time. For decades, anthropologists believed that it was extremely rare. But new evidence suggests it's quite common in human history, occurring in many different cultures, though it never became as popular as polygamy (one man with multiple wives) or monogamy (two people in an exclusive relationship). Over at The Atlantic, Alice Dreger calls our attention to a paper published last year which chronicles the history of polyandry, exploring the social circumstances where tends to happen. More »

Essie Mae Washington Williams, the long unacknowledged biracial daughter of arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond, has died at 87.

“We call him Mean Man,” Ronda Wilbur, who lives across the street from Dykes’ property, said. “He killed my dog with a lead pipe.”

A new restaurant that focuses on pizza will be opening in the red-hot Fort Point district of Boston.

The Boston Herald is reporting that George Lewis (formerly of the now-closed Foundation Lounge in Kenmore Square) and Todd Winer (culinary director for the Met Restaurant Group) are looking to open Pastoral on Congress Street, moving into the Neena's Lighting space. The article mentions that the 140-seat eatery will be a "pizza-centric" spot that offers Neapolitan pies cooked in a stone oven that is being brought over from Italy, along with dishes with Mediterranean influences. Pastoral could be open by the summer, according to the Herald.

A number of other restaurants are coming to Fort Point, including Ming Tsai's Blue Dragon and a pizzeria from celebrity chef Mario Batali.

The address for this upcoming dining spot is: Pastoral, 343 Congress Street, Boston, MA, 02210.


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The haunted past of Amy Bishop, a University of Alabama neurobiologist who shot six colleagues during a staff meeting.

[Full Story]

In 1983, the NY Times distributed a memo outlining the policy for computer use by employees.

5. Games and visual oddities may not be played or stored in the computer. They clutter the storage disk and slow its operation; they also encourage browsing, which leads to privacy violation. Finally, games may give new or junior staff members a misleading impression of the seriousness we attached to computer privacy.

(via @davidfg)

Tags: NY Times

Once upon a time, I inadvertently started a cosplay race war on Tumblr. Whoops. So, here’s the deal: I’m a cosplayer. If you don’t already know one of us in person, (and you probably do) (WE’RE EVERYWHERE) you’ve probably seen people like me on the news — all dolled up in a rainbow of face paint and eye popping wigs, 50 shades of spandex and skyscraper shoes, for the sake of expressing love for and bringing our favorite characters to life at sci-fi, comic book, video game and anime conventions. Since I started cosplaying in 2008, I’ve traveled the country, hitting up as many cons as financially possible. all the while making incredible friends, unforgettable memories and lugging hard-to-get-through-airport-security props along the way. (Have you ever tried to fly with a dress made out of plastic bubbles? Fun fact — YOU CAN’T. But you can ship it to your hotel!) Here’s the second deal: I’m also black. Which is fine by most everyone, until I have the audacity to cosplay a character who isn’t. After my pictures started making the rounds on deviantArt, tumblr and 4chan, it became pretty clear that my cosplay brings all the racists to the yard, and they’re like…white cosplay is better than yours. I got a crash course in this when in 2010, I cosplayed Sailor Venus, my favorite character from my favorite anime, Sailor Moon. I found a fellow cosplayer to commission it from, as I wasn’t able to sew at the time, and worked carefully with her to bring the costume to life. I then constructed all of my accessories, agonized over choosing a shade of blonde I thought would compliment me, and wore her to A-Kon 21, a yearly anime convention in Dallas. One of the big draws for cosplayers at cons is going to the series-specific photoshoot, where you gather with other people doing characters from the same series and pose for pictures. While at the Sailor Moon shoot, I chatted up and befriended a photographer who took the now infamous picture of me that would eventually go on to accompany numerous blog and forum posts arguing about whether or not black people should cosplay outside of their race. (via I’m a Black Female Cosplayer And Some People Hate It | xoJane)

Gandalf’s hex squelched my plans to take over his wizard job.

(49 letters)

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn and call his state senator to complain about expensive new slurry pit legislation, spend all day with his ag lobby board strategizing about more laws against private raw milk sales, take that state senator out for steak and wine at dinner, and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board at the school he wants to eliminate with a voucher program." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody that can tell an employee to go shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, make a harness out of hay wire, and not report dangerous working conditions involved in doing those things. And, who, at planting time and harvest season, can get together with his Tea Party friends and complain about unchecked government spending while cashing Farm Bill subsidy and crop insurance checks. Then, painin' from 'golf cart back,' put in another 72 minutes penning an op-ed to the local paper about socialism ruining the invisible hand of the market.

"I need somebody with strong, undocumented laborers. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to understand the economic need to ignore minimum wage and overtime laws." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to count on an underfunded FDA and castrated EPA, to heave their stomachs out of their SUVs and yet gentle enough to be reactionary about inevitable demographic changes to 'the heartland'… and who will stop his mower for an hour to paint a sign, to be placed in his field by the highway, reading 'Show me the birth certificate.'" So God made a farmer.

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed and breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life "not doing what dad does." So God made an undocumented farm worker.

Abe Sauer is the author of How to be: NORTH DAKOTA.

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2 Spanish Black Radish 2 Blood Oranges fresh walnuts, finely chopped freshly ground salt freshly ground white pepper

“Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions.

Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.

In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:

The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.

In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately.”

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[x] (via neighborly)

relevant to friggin’ everything lately. 

It was bad enough that San Francisco 49ers player Chris Culliver said earlier this week that he wouldn’t tolerate a gay teammate and then offered a non-apology apology for saying so. Now, two other 49ers have claimed that they didn’t appear in an “It Gets Better” video they clearly were in. Linebacker Ahmad Brooks and defensive tackle Isaac Sopoaga denied to USA Today that they made the video, then when showed the video, claimed they didn’t realize it was to fight the bullying of LGBT youth (even though teammate Donte Whitner specifically identifies “LGBT teens”):

BROOKS: I didn’t make any video. This is America and if someone wants to be gay, they can be gay. It’s their right. But I didn’t make any video… I don’t remember that. I think if I made a video, I’d remember it. [After being shown the video...] Oh, that. It was an anti-bullying video, not a gay (rights) video.

Indeed, the San Francisco 49ers are the only NFL team to have produced a video for the “It Gets Better” project, but Dan Savage has said they’ve removed the video from the project’s website because of these players’ comments. OutSports recut the video without Brooks and Sopoaga, such that it now only features defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois and safety Donte Whitner. Watch it:

I promise the handbag was not simply a cartoon I superimposed onto this picture.

New Yorker Sueann, who was in Boston for the weekend, was toting around this high contrast, fruit-colored purse that surely would make anyone look twice. Though a fully functional bag, it seemed, from afar, like a two-dimensional flat image from a comic book. You can get one here.

Phew. I thought I was living in a cartoon reality for a second there.

And of course, a 70′s-does-Gatsy themed shirt.

Also––notice that crosstie. That piece of black cloth underneath her collar. I thought they’ve been largely phased out. But it looks like Sueann’s bringing them back (going to buy myself a pair on Etsy right NOW).

Very stylish. It’s no wonder that she’s been featured once before on the fashion pages of the Wall Street Journal.

This falls within the realm of strong rumor, but it's an exciting rumor all the same. Deadline is reporting that Benedict Cumberbatch is "in deep conversations" to play cryptanalyst and computer scientist Alan Turing in the biopic The Imitation Game, a script from the 2011 Black List. Will Cumberbatch make the jump from playing a literary genius to playing a historical one? More »

[Photos: Gigazine]

The novelty sandwich strikes again next week as KFC Japan rolls out its new Kentucky Rice Chicken, a sandwich that builds upon the glories of the Double Down by adding a ketchup-y patty of rice in between the chicken filet patties. But, as Inventor Spot points out, this new sandwich is ultimately inferior in one important way: there is no bacon on it. There's also only one slice of cheese on the Kentucky Rice Chicken, which will only come fried not grilled. Also, less mayonnaise.

Anyway, the sandwich goes on sale on February 7 for a limited time in Japan for 450 yen ($4.95). And apparently it does beat the Double Down in terms of how fat it will make you. According to Inventor Spot, it "tips the scales at 256 grams and 585 calories," whereas the Japanese version of the Double Down (released last year) hit 540 calories.

· KFC Japan's "Kentucky Chicken Rice" [Inventor Spot via HuffPo]
· All Novelty Sandwiches Coverage on Eater [-E-]

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