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haggishlyhagging · 4 months

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As the fetus's rights increased, mother's just kept diminishing. Poor pregnant women were hauled into court by male prosecutors, physicians, and husbands. Their blood was tested for drug traces without their consent or even notification, their confidentiality rights were routinely violated in the state's zeal to compile a case against them, and they were forced into obstetrical surgery for the "good" of the fetus, even at risk of their own lives.

Here are just a few of the many cases from the decade's pregnancy police blotter and court docket:

• In Michigan, a juvenile court took custody of a newborn because the mother took a few Valium pills while pregnant, to ease pain caused by an auto accident injury. The mother of three had no history of drug abuse or parental neglect. It took more than a year for her to get her child back.

• In California, a young woman was brought up on fetal neglect charges under a law that, ironically, was meant to force negligent fathers to pay child support. Her offenses included failing to heed a doctor's advice (a doctor who had failed to follow up on her treatment), not getting to the hospital with due haste, and having sex with her husband. The husband, a batterer whose brutal outbursts had summoned the police to their apartment more than a dozen times in one year alone, was not charged —or even investigated.

• In lowa, the state took a woman's baby away at birth even though no real harm to the infant was evident—because she had, among other alleged offenses, "paid no attention to the nutritional value of the food she ate during her pregnancy," as an AP story later characterized the Juvenile Court testimony. "[S]he simply picked the foods that tasted good to her."

• In Wyoming, a woman was charged with felony child abuse for allegedly drinking while pregnant. A battered wife, she had been arrested on this charge after she sought police protection from her abusive husband.

• In Illinois, a woman was summoned to court after her husband accused her of damaging their daughter's intestine in an auto accident during her pregnancy. She wasn't even the driver.

• In Michigan, another husband hauled his wife into court to accuse her of taking tetracycline during her pregnancy; the drug, prescribed by her physician, allegedly discolored their son's teeth, he charged. The state's appellate court ruled that the husband did indeed have the right to sue for this "prenatal negligence."

• In Maryland, a woman lost custody of her fetus when she refused to transfer to a hospital in another city, a move she resisted because it would have meant stranding her nineteen-month-old son.

• In South Carolina, an eighteen-year-old pregnant woman was arrested before she had even given birth, on the suspicion that she may have passed cocaine to her fetus. The charge, based on a single urine test, didn't hold up; she delivered a healthy drug-free baby. Even so, and even though the Department of Social Services found no evidence of abuse or neglect, State prosecutors announced that they intended to pursue the case anyway.

• In Wisconsin, a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl was confined in a secure detention facility because of her alleged tendencies "to be on the run" and "to lack motivation" to seek prenatal care.

Certainly society has a compelling interest in bringing healthy children into the world, both a moral and practical obligation to help women take care of themselves while they're pregnant. But the punitive and vindictive treatment mothers were beginning to receive from legislators, police, prosecutors, and judges in the 80s suggests that more than simple concern for children's welfare was at work here. Police loaded their suspects into paddy wagons still bleeding from labor; prosecutors barged into maternity wards to conduct their interrogations. Judges threw pregnant women with drug problems into jail for months at a time, even though, as the federal General Accounting Office and other investigative agencies have found, the prenatal care offered pregnant women in American prisons is scandalously deficient or nonexistent (many prisons don't even have gynecologists)—and has caused numerous incarcerated women to give birth to critically ill and damaged babies. Police were eager to throw the book at erring pregnant women. In the case of Pamela Rae Stewart of San Diego the battered woman charged with having sex against her doctor's orders—the officer who headed up the investigation wanted her tried for manslaughter. "In my mind, I didn't see any difference between born and unborn," Lieutenant Ray Narramore explains later. "The only question I had was why they didn't go for a murder charge. I would have been satisfied with murder. That wouldn't have been off-base. I mean, we have a lady here who was not following doctor's orders."

Lawmakers' claims that they just wanted to improve conditions for future children rang especially false. At the same time that legislators were assailing low-income mothers for failing to take care of their fetuses, they were making devastating cuts in the very services that poor pregnant women needed to meet the lawmakers' demands. How was an impoverished woman supposed to deliver a healthy fetus when she was denied prenatal care, nutrition supplements, welfare payments, and housing assistance? In the District of Columbia, Marion Barry declared infant health a top priority of his mayoral campaign—then cut health-care funding, forcing prenatal clinics to scale back drastically and eliminate outright their evening hours needed by the many working women. Doctors increasingly berated low-income mothers, but they also increasingly refused to treat them. By the end of the decade, more than one-fourth of all counties nationwide lacked any clinic where poor women could get prenatal care, and a third of doctors wouldn't treat pregnant women who were Medicaid patients. In New York State, a health department study found that seven of the state's counties had no comprehensive prenatal care for poor women whatsoever; several of these counties, not so coincidentally, had infant mortality rates that were more than double the national average. In California in 1986, twelve counties didn't have a single doctor willing to accept the state's low-income MediCal patients; in fact, the National Health Law Program concluded that the situation in California was so bad that poor pregnant women are "essentially cut off from access to care."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

#susan faludi #female oppression #prenatal care #low income women #pregnancy #amerika #failed state #court-ordered kidnapping #USA is a society that wants to die #misogyny

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360degreesasthecrowflies · 4 months

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London is a city that has always been deeply uneven, with plenty of cultural treasures to hide the poverty in the Tower Blocks and the underpasses. London is effectively the main of the UK economy, and everything is geared towards it. Hence it retains a degree of economic dynamism that allows a degree of optimism, after all there's always a new restaurant, new exhibition, new flagship store, new play. Sure most workers are dirt poor, living on mashed avocado, and hoping the landlord gets visited by 3 Ghosts at Christmas, but there's the dream of making it in the big city.

Outside the London bubble, large parts of the country are either in despair, or have totally given up. Roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools are crumbling. Police have almost disappeared outside traffic stops. Courts are backlogged, prisons overfilled & well past their designed lifespan. Companies face significant trade barriers with the EU. The water industry is essentially operating on leveraged debt and mostly owned by oversea's pension funds, whilst the infrastructure collapses and raw sewage is being pumped into the rivers/seas. Everyone is underpaid compared to the cost of living, but also compared to many comparable roles in other countries.

In the shires, the more well paid commuter class can still have a nice life, but they are feeling a sharp pinch. Holidays cut. Cars held on to much, much longer than before. Meals out being reduced. Optional extras like music or sports for the kids cancelled. Impulse purchases stopped. All of which sounds like "oh poor Emma can't get her daughter Lucinda piano lessons boo hoo" but think about the economic impact. That is money that would have gone to a piano teacher (usually self employed), to the coffee shop whilst Emma waits, to a music shop for music, perhaps a CD or concert tickets to something Lucinda played at a lesson. Then when Lucinda grows up instead of having a career in arts or entertainment, even at her local bar or church, she doesn't know how to play piano. So society as a whole has lost a musician, and Lucinda as a person flourishes slightly less. The UK arts sector is one of our biggest economic powerhouses, yet it is routinely ignored and hammered by the govt. Art & music are regarded as luxury items, despite contributing £1.6 billion to the annual economy (2021 at 5.6%). That's huge, bigger than the fishing industry which contributes £1.4 billion (2021 at 4%). Yet with rents sky rocketing, and school budgets in utter crisis, arts/music get dropped and creative talent has to switch to more routine jobs to survive. UK Musicians are dropped from EU events following the botched visa system, and international work is increasingly harder for them to get.

Outside the diminishing middle class, the real difficulty and poverty of the UK hits home. People are not sure whether the next rent payment or electricity will quite literally bankrupt them and leave them homeless. Wages are mostly static, with few rises outside a number of key sectors. Some areas have seen wage growth, but that has been concentrated in a small number of jobs (especially finance/management). The population is aging, and the care system is left almost entirely to private companies in a very disjointed, expensive manner. For most people the only credible hope of a financially better life is to inherit or to win the lottery or to commit crime. This is strikingly similar to the pattern seen in many developing world economies.

For example, I have worked in the public sector for 20 years. In that time I have trained, gained professional qualifications, led larger teams, upskilled on IT/project management and become more productive. Since my pay has been capped at a 0.5% rise, it is a real terms wage cut. So I've become more productive yet I'm paid less. Why should I 1) carry on trying to be more productive, & 2) stay in the job? Productivity increases from workers have to be linked to a personal reward, as well as a benefit to an employer or there's no point for the employee. Hence "quiet quitting".

So the UK is in the dire position of poor infrastructure, rampant poverty, and a population that no longer believes hard work or being productive will improve their own lives, only maintain their survival. This is not a recipe for a flourishing economy or nation. The worst thing is that the UK has started to lose hope that things can get better without a magical solution. Without at least some hope, we are doomed.

Saved via reddit from user 'AgeOfVictoriaPodcast' - as an excellent (if depressing!) summary of the UK's economy and society in 2023 / the 2020s / post Brexit

#uk politics #united kingdom #british politics #2020s #2023 #quotes #age of victoria podcast #uk society #quiet quitting #tory failures #failed state #uk #poverty #society #cost of living crisis

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hammercarexplosion · 13 days

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Person: *Clearly states upwards of two dozen broken promises and bad policy decisions of Biden and his administration including bombing Palestine to hell, pretending covid is over, taking a stance right of many Republicans on "border security," funding the police even more than ever, ensuring new conflict in the Middle East and Asia, cronyism in his political appointments, not defending Roe v. Wade or otherwise protecting abortion rights, same for trans existence, keeping Marijuana schedule 1 instead of legalization, more drilling on public lands than Trump, et al.*

Liberal: "Well *I* don't like how *you* phrased *one* of those points so I'm not even going to engage with the REST of them because OBVIOUSLY you are a RUSSIAN CHAOS AGENT! BEGONE SPAWN OF PUTIN!"

#genocide joe #joe biden #failed state #failed president

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bubblegum-sullivan-13 · 6 months

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This whole weekend I've been flirting with a woman from North Carolina. They should really disclose that kind of thing up front. I feel deceived.

#north carolina #failed state

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 2 years

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Republicans: we want to kill everyone who isn't one of us

Democrats: we* don't* want* to kill* everyone* who isn't one of us*

*some restrictions apply, results may vary

#2022 #midterms #lesser of two evils #politics #political #republicans #democrats #i hate everyone in power #failed state #failed experiment

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afranse · 9 months

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Раньше Россия жила в лесу,

А нынче живёт в саванне.

И жизни нет ни в одном глазу

В России иными словами.

Куда ни посмотришь - безумный цирк,

Где скалятся львы и тигры.

Одни призывают - в окопы, юнцы!

Другие к ядерной гидре.

И всюду на почве безумия гнев,

И изо рта пена.

И правит балом даже не лев,

А гаденькая гиена.

#######################

Russia used to live in the forest

And now it lives in the savannah.

It established itself as a mafia failed state

Under the false flag banner.

Wherever you look - crazy circus,

Where lions and tigers roar.

Some call into the trenches folks,

Others to the nuclear bombs glow.

And everywhere on the basis of madness Anger’s foam comes out of jaws.

And not even a lion rules the ball,

But the ugly hyena’s paws.

#######################

Росія раніше жила в лісі,

А нині живе у савані.

І життя немає в жодному оці

У Росії інакше словами.

Куди не подивишся - божевільний цирк,

Де скеляться леви та тигри.

Одні закликають – у окопи, молодики!

Інші до ядерної гідри.

І всюди на ґрунті божевілля гнів,

І з пащі піна.

І править балом навіть не лев,

А гаденька гієна.

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hellpuppetswithfleshymembers · 10 months

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#class war #working class #oligarchy #kleptocracy #failed state #capitalism

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awesome-casuallyfamouscollector · 11 months

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youtube

It's Over! South Africa is F*&$d - Failed State

P.S. Primitive populism, one-party rule and corruption look the same everywhere: rich leaders and poor masses...

#south africa #political corruption #emigration #failed state #Africa #Youtube #expensive fossil fuel #opressive regime #organized crime

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froschperspektiven · 11 months

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Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi

"But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." (Then-Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, five years before the invasion of Iraq based on fabricated evidence in 2003.)

#rogue state #failed state #state terrorism

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bopinion · 1 year

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2023 / 16

Aperçu of the Week:

"With so many things coming back in style, I can't wait until morals, respect and intelligence become a trend again."

(Denzel Washington, US-American actor)

Bad News of the Week:

In recent days, the spotlight has shifted to a country that should have done so sooner because of its problems: Sudan. For 30 years, the autocrat Umar al-Bashir, who came to power in a military coup in 1989, led (not to say suppressed) Sudan with a hard hand, it is an unfortunately classic state story in Africa. Since South Sudan's independence in 2011 at the latest, the country, wracked by regional separatist movements, has no longer been a functioning state. After al-Bashir was deposed - by a military coup, of course - the military leadership and the opposition agreed on a transitional government that was supposed to democratize the country and prepare it for free elections. What didn't happen.

Now two factions of the military are fighting each other for power: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) under de facto head of state General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under his former deputy General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, better known as Hemeti. Both lead the so-called Sovereign Council, which is effectively a military junta. Fighting began when RSF troops took control of the Soba military base south of the main city of Khartoum a week ago. Since then, there has been fighting over strategic locations such as the international airport and the headquarters of state television, and there have been constant explosions and confrontations throughout the city, which have reportedly already claimed the lives of some 500 civilians.

The population is largely holed up in their homes. Without supplies of food or medicine, and often with outages of electricity and water, the suffering of the people is unimaginable. Foreign countries call for a ceasefire and evacuate their diplomatic personnel and some of their nationals. That's it. There is no real leverage, and military intervention is unlikely, given the increasing withdrawal from comparable conflict areas in recent years, such as Mali. Is there any reason for hope? I fear not.

In the future, Sudan will vegetate as a failed state just like Libya or Iraq. Only this time, probably without an ultimately useless intervention by the West. It will be interesting to see whether China, which has been present in the south since the 1970s and is a kind of godfather to South Sudan, will intervene again. This is supported by the fact that China is increasingly buying influence on the African continent if, for example, there are rich mineral resources, as in this case. The fact that they have never intervened militarily, which would probably be indispensable in this case, speaks against it. In any case, it will end badly for the population. Whether with or without China, there will be no human rights, prosperity, democracy, welfare state, domestic peace, education for all, and so on.

Good News of the Week:

What a lot of ranting there is about government and its reluctance to take effective action against, or at least mitigate, the effects of climate change. The four biggest areas where change is needed are industry, energy, transportation and construction/housing. Industry is already on a solid path and reached the set targets - albeit with the help of pandemic-related production reductions - in 2022. In energy (generation), at least something is happening, although too little. There is hardly anything to be seen in the area of transportation, which is not surprising in view of the car lobby, the traditionally conservative ministry and various taboo topics such as a speed limit.

Let's move on to construction and housing. The first part is partly industrial, for example the production of building materials, and partly private, i.e. dependent on the owners - for example the decision to install thermal windows. In addition to private energy consumption, which can also be covered (in part) by photovoltaic systems on the roof, the dominant issue is heating. The majority of German heating systems are still powered by oil or gas. Which, in addition to the dependencies for which we are now all paying bitterly, is above all extremely harmful to the environment. As is always the case when a fossil fuel is burned.

So a paradigm shift is needed here. For example, by replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump. This is currently regarded as the ideal solution because, apart from the operating electricity, which can come from renewable energy sources, it only needs to convert thermal energy. A bit like a refrigerator, but in the opposite direction. The problem is that high peak temperatures are not reached, usually at 40 degrees Celsius is the end. In well-insulated houses that have large radiating surfaces such as underfloor heating, this is sufficient. In poorly insulated houses, where a classic radiator is usually also placed on a thinner wall of all places under an old window, this is often not enough.

Last week, an amendment to the Building Energy Act was now presented by the green-led Ministry of Economics and approved by the cabinet. The key point: as early as next year, all newly installed heating systems must be powered by at least 65 percent renewable energy. This effectively means the death of all oil and gas heating systems, with the latter having a shaky future with hydrogen - which, however, is not yet available at the moment and will be very expensive later on. This leaves electric heating. And the mentioned heat pump, which is more expensive than, say, a gas boiler, combined with cost-intensive building renovations required because of the radiation surfaces and insulation.

This is hitting the population at precisely the time when new construction financing and, above all, rental cost levels are going through the roof anyway. Particularly in areas that are in demand and characterized by an influx of people, such as here in the Munich area, housing is slowly becoming a luxury that often already eats up more than half of the income. For this reason, the state offers subsidies of between 30 and 50 percent for the replacement of fossil-fuelled heating systems. Regardless of whether this is voluntary and proactive or forced because the old system is simply no longer repairable or maintainable. There are also subsidies or at least low-interest loans with repayment subsidies for the accompanying renovation.

The good thing about this is not only that climate-friendly measures and only climate-friendly measures are finally being subsidized. When it comes to mobility, for example, driving a car is still treated in exactly the same way as taking the train. The ambitious timetable is also good. As I said, the law will take effect as early as next year and is not, as is so often the case, just some lax target agreement by the end of the decade. Yes, this will be problematic, as there are likely to be bottlenecks in both heat pump manufacturing and their professional installation. But that doesn't have to matter. Otherwise, we'll end up in an infinite loop like with electromobility: vehicle sales stall because there's a lack of charging capacity. And these are not being created because demand is too low, since not enough e-cars are being bought. Those who only invoke the dilemma of a Catch 22 situation will never get off the ground.

Personal happy moment of the week:

At work, I was able to successfully coordinate that I will have a week off in about two months. After that never worked out last time, because I stayed at home - too close to the home office - this time we will go on a trip. Namely to the "The sea of stone" in the Austrian Alps. Where there is no digital accessibility at our mountain inn. Smart move. Actually, I could have thought of that earlier.

I couldn't care less...

...that Michael Kretschmer from Saxony is now the first German prime minister to call for a stop to the immigration of refugees. Even for former local staff from Afghanistan. Not everyone has yet understood that our society needs immigration to maintain its prosperity. Especially against the backdrop of aging and a shortage of employees, especially in less demanding fields of activity. The real problem, after all, is the lack of integration and qualification. Both are not only a debt to be collected, but also a debt to be brought.

As I write this...

...Ramadan is coming to an end. For the first time this year I have seen it with different eyes. Thanks to my new work colleague Tarek. A Syrian. And Muslim. That reminds me that I have a Koran - fortunately in an annotated version for amateurs - on my bookshelf. Which I will (hopefully soon) read. Because just like the Bible, it is far more than just a religious pamphlet. It defines the cultural basis of whole nations. And this foundation should be known. And respected. Especially to enable one to evaluate dubious spin-offs by oneself.

Post Scriptum

Last week, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a medal. The "Grand Cross in Special Execution." As the third bearer after her predecessors in office Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl. Of course, there was not only praise in this context, but also criticism. Both justified. In her 16 years in office, she "outlasted" 13 party leaders of the Social Democrats, the primary political competitor of her conservative party, the CDU.

So I'll take the liberty of quoting the current incumbent, Saskia Esken: "Her opponents - from her own ranks as well as from outside - cut their teeth on her integrity and her fine sense of humor." Merkel's "diplomatic skills and empathic wisdom, with which she repeatedly succeeded in forging viable coalitions and compromises on both the national and international stage," she said, deserved special praise. Because: "Especially in our troubled and crisis-ridden times, an almost invaluable skill." Merkel, she said, had therefore "navigated Germany with a sense of proportion through the many crises of her time in office."

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