South Carolina's 'pregnancy police'

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Mon, Aug. 18, 2003

South Carolina's 'pregnancy police'
By Robyn Blumner
St. Petersburg Times

When Regina McKnight delivered a stillborn baby in May 1999 after 8 1/2 months of pregnancy, she did what many other mothers who lose a baby do: She grieved.

With an estimated 28,000 women a year suffering a stillborn delivery, McKnight's situation was hardly unique. Except for one thing: McKnight was arrested for it.

McKnight, who is poor and black and has an IQ of 72, was charged with "homicide by child abuse" for smoking crack cocaine during a pregnancy that ended in a stillbirth. After two trials in Horry County, S.C., McKnight -- then 24 years old and a mother of three with no prior criminal record -- was sentenced to 12 years in prison with no chance of parole.

South Carolina has tried persistently and for years to make women criminally liable for their pregnancies. More specifically, Charlie Condon, the state's former attorney general who is running for U.S. Senate, has been the architect of the state's attempts to punish pregnant women. He helped to formulate a program of drug-testing pregnant women at a Charleston public hospital that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001. (snip/...)

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/6558965.htm

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Have you ever noticed....

that the most 'gung-ho' protectors of the unborn are men?? I still support a law that if you've never been pregnant, never thought you might be pregnant, or have no chance in hell of ever being pregnant, that you keep your mouth shut on anything relating to pregnancy!!!

[FireHeart]

2. Agreed.

The only real thing here is the power. These guys want to control women and by controlling the womb, they control the woman. It is their only real goal.

I mean, I've heard this stuff before. Most (but not all) of these people are also anti-choice, anti-birth control and anti-free prental health care for the poor.

Ah well. Whaddya gonna do.

[meow2u3]

4. The right wing "pro-lifers" want to end abortion for the wrong reasons

They don't care a rat's ass whether the poor kid lives or dies outside the womb, as long as he or she is born--they just want to punish the woman for "endangering" the kid--while the man who puts her in that position gets off scot-free!!!!

As a neoprogressive, I'm outraged that only the woman gets punished for a stillbirth. I'm also enraged that these women aren't offered even the most basic prenatal care. Power-hungry macho pigs is what I call the right-wing hypocrites, who hate women and kids!!!

What next? jail for miscarraiges?

[FireHeart]

6. Agreed again

They don't care about the "child" at all. If they did, they'd set up an infrastructure to see that the "child" was cared for, the woman's health needs were met and so forth.

But you don't see this, do you? The anti-choicers want someone else to bear the burden of their political/religious beliefs. All they really want is control. Nothing more, nothing less.

[meow2u3]

8. There is pro-life, and there's anti-choice. Yes, there IS a difference

It all depends on how one treats the child--and the mom--before and after birth. Real pro-lifers have--and show--compassion for the kid and his/her mother. Anti-choicers are power mad and only want to bully women and children.

Now I see the difference.

[dorktv]

9. That has happened before...But I do not have the

actual case with me.

[QuietStorm]

10. I find I am in agreement with post 1 & 2

I think it has little to do with life of the fetus or the mother, but instead is directly related to want of power over woman and over her life which centers itself on this obession these men have with her womb. There is a ring of truth there IMHO.

[maha]

3. agree n/t

[MountainLaurel]

14. Great quote I saw once

"97 percent of the leaders of the pro-life movement are white males above the age of 55. Zero percent of them will ever be pregnant."

Or something along those lines. Pretty damn telling, isn't it?

[neverforget]

5. If there's a way for the power obsessed fundies to control women

they'll use it.

[tom_paine]

7. This would mesh well with the New Amerikan Vigilantism

Black clad Freepers are now prowling the streets of Elkhart, Indiana, and National Forests in Oregon, with the blessing of the Empire in it's quest for the "ultimate prvatization".

And how many more of these Right-Wing Paramilitary Groups are there that haven't been reported on? Is there one in your town?

And yes, currently they are NOT behaving like Nazis or Soviets. But that can and will change..one more terrorist attack, or if one of the millions angry, voiceless, powerless Americans who miss our Old Republic lose it and strike first (which I am NOT advocating, that's a fools errand which will just diminsih the time in which we are living in this pleasant twilight that is the sunset of the Old American Democratic-Republic).

But advocate it or not, I think it's going to happen within the next decade.

For every action (Busheviks and the VRWC stealing our nation and shamelessly defrauding us in broad daylight and essentially ending the American Experiment in Participatory Democracy) there is an equal and opposite reaction.

[mightywurlitzer]

11. How do they know

that the child wouldn't have been stillborn regardless? They happen all the time. Now they're going to blame the mother for something that could have otherwise happened naturally?

[FireHeart]

12. Well...

They will have the fetus autopsied, and if the ME decides the "probable cause" of death was drug abuse, etc, etc, s/he will rule it was either a homicide or accidental death.

Depending on the instructions given to the ME, it can go either way.

It's a very easy situation that can be manipulated to whatever political/religious philosophy that is popular in that particular state.

edit: grammatical errors.

[jmm]

13. If they took the money they spent on her trial and incarceration

I wonder how many women they could provide prenatal care to or children they could ensure had health insurance?

[SyracuseDemocrat]

15. I think it was wrong to charge her...

But I still think the mom is a complete asshole and a loser for smoking crack cocaine while pregnant. That is NOT a victimless crime.

[OldCurmudgeon]

16. I think the most recent medical evidence...

is that "crack babies" is a misnomer, and that most of the problems withs such babies are actually fetal alcohol syndrome. It's just that (ab)use of one drug is often associated with (ab)use of others as well.

Not that it makes the woman's behavior any better, but this prosecution is blatently unfair, abusive and intrusive.