A free government is a complicated piece of machinery, the nice and exact adjustment of whose springs, wheels, and weights, is not yet well comprehended by the artists of the age, and still less by the people. – John Adams
I wonder how much longer it will be before it starts to dawn on most reasonably-intelligent women that neofeminist-sponsored male-chauvinist legislation has established (and continues to strengthen) a legal precedent that adult heterosexual women are morally and emotionally incompetent to make our own decisions, and that male legislators and prosecutors can and will use such precedents to control women and, if the process goes unchecked, reduce us all to lifelong wards of the state to be used and disciplined as it sees fit. The Swedish Model, mandatory domestic violence prosecution laws, sexual harassment laws and anti-sex-work laws all establish that women are (as St. Peter expressed it) the “weaker vessel”, unable to make rational adult decisions on any matter involving sexual relationships with men, and that it is therefore permissible for the state to strip us of the right of decision in such matters. This precedent is now being creatively applied by evil prosecutors in a way no neofeminist ever could have expected…though of course every cynic did.
The following is from a June 24th article in The Guardian:
Rennie Gibbs…became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006…when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby’s death – they charged her with the “depraved-heart murder” of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence. Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions…seek to turn pregnant women into criminals. “Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws,” said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). “It’s turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights.”
Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her. Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.
In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state’s “chemical endangerment” law…[which was] designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes. Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way…Six months [after her baby died soon after birth, she] was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied. “That shocked me, it really did,” Kimbrough said. “I had lost a child, that was enough.” She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars…
Women’s rights campaigners see the creeping criminalisation of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion…[by] stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs’ case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi’s highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion. “If it’s not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is,” Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court. McDuff…[said] that he hoped the Gibbs prosecution was an isolated example. “I hope it’s not a trend that’s going to catch on. To charge a woman with murder because of something she did during pregnancy is really unprecedented and quite extreme.” He pointed out that anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution…[to] widen the definition of a person…to include a foetus from the day of conception…Paltrow sees what is happening to Gibbs as a small taste of what would be unleashed were the constitutional right to an abortion ever overturned. “In Mississippi the use of the murder statute is creating a whole new legal standard that makes women accountable for the outcome of their pregnancies and threatens them with life imprisonment for murder.”
At least 38 of the 50 states…have introduced foetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves. South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy. In other states laws designed to protect children against the damaging effects of drugs have similarly been twisted to punish childbearers.
As I wrote in my column of one year ago today, I despise cocaine and I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to take it while pregnant, but Gibbs was 15 years old; thus we see yet another example of the Kafkaesque illogic which permeates modern law. When it comes to sex Gibbs is classified as a “child”, a poor naïve innocent whose lover would no doubt be sitting in prison for “rape” right now if he were 18 or older. But let her miscarry and Shazam! she suddenly changes from innocent “child” to an adult with a “depraved heart”. And if that’s not absurd enough for you, consider that since late-term abortions are legal in Mississippi, had she taken a drug to cause miscarriage on purpose she would not be in any trouble; it’s only accidentally killing one’s baby that’s illegal. By any stretch of the imagination that constitutes a total moral inversion. Also note the popular absurdity (mentioned in three places herein, and pivotal to the whole “Caylee’s Law” hysteria) that a law can “protect” the weak from violence; it can do no such thing. All a law can do is to provide for vengeance after the violence is accomplished. These prosecutor’s aren’t “renegades” as the article calls them; they are doing exactly what they’re paid to do, instill fear of the government in the population.
It’s not going to get better by itself, ladies, nor will it get better at all if you continue to smoke the neofeminist crack and waste your time reading “women’s studies” texts and essays on “feminist criticism” of movies. If you want to be treated as adults you’re going to have to fight for ALL adult women to be treated as adults, even when they do things you don’t like. If you want to own and control your body, you’re going to have to allow ALL women to own and control their bodies. Unless you want women punished for unhealthy or unwise choices during pregnancy, you’re going to have to allow others that option outside pregnancy. And unless you want your body to be the property of the State, you had best forget your idiotic war against your allies, normal individual men, and stop getting into bed with the politicians who will tell you any pretty lie you want to hear so they can trick you into a position to be raped.
Jesus, this is so awful. So do they think they can charge mothers now for harming their child if they drink or smoke while pregnant? If we let these idiots get away with this it will come down to that. Ever see the “Handmaids Tale”? Are we plunging into a scary scenario of something like that movie?
Do you know about frogs? If you drop a frog into hot water, it’ll jump out immediately. But if you put it in cold water and very gradually raise the temperature, it’ll stay in the water until it cooks. Humans are like that, too; if the government had enacted all these laws in the late 19th century there would’ve been immediate revolution, but that temperature’s been going up just one degree per year and it’s coming to a boil nicely now, and all the frogs are just floating there cooking.
And oddly enough, I too thought of The Handmaid’s Tale when I read this.
Joy-killing, pin-headed pedant post of the day: the frog metaphor, while priceless, is not actually true; I recommend James Fallows on the (slimy, amphibious) subject.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/09/once-and-for-all-with-the-frogs/27150/
LOL, I was hoping nobody would notice that! Yes, I read years ago that wasn’t true, but it’s such a good analogy (like the ostrich sticking its head in the sand) that I continue to use it. Sorry ’bout that. 😉
Situations like this always remind me of ‘The Walrus & The Carpener’ by Lewis Carrol and the, what I would think is the farily obvious, danger of following people who claim to know better than you what to do with yourself with out bothering to find out what they are really about.
The neofeminists don’t see the link. It has to be made more obvious.
Hi Gorbachev,
The link between feminism and communism can’t be made any clearer.
I know you have seen this but some won’t have.
“The thesis must clearly point out that real freedom for women is possible only through communism.” V I Lenin.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm
And here we are 90 years later. The entire western world is now communist. It is called ‘democracy’. But what did Lenin say? Here is what he said.
“Besides, you must remember that even the ladies of the ‘constitutional democracy’ in Petrograd proved more courageous against us than did the junkers.”
Communism, according to Lenin, is a ‘constitutional democracy’.
Brilliant piece Maggie. You are one woman who sees guvment for what it is. Tyranny for all under the guise of ‘protecting women and children’.
I shall spread this article as far and wide as I can.
I really do wish more women would wake the hell up.
I have sent this out to my personal email list and asked the men on it to please forward it as far and wide as possible. I have also put this article onto many mens groups.
Thank you very much for this article Maggie. I hope your read counter really jumps on this one.
It’s always nice when that happens! Thank you!
Thank you, Peter!
You know maggie…I am routinely hated on by women for speaking out that women are stupid that they can not see what is coming their way.
I put this post onto a thread that had drawn a lot of attention. 950+ posts and being watched by quite a few people.
It is the facebook of a man whos child was murdered by child protection services. The women still hated on me and slandered me.
There seems to be a problem just now but it should be working soon.
http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums/tabid/82/forumid/109/threadid/594/scope/posts/Default.aspx
By the way? I am coming in for quiet a bit of flack for telling people “what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home or a hotel room is no-one elses business even if money is exchanged…and what is marriage other than legalised prostition..only without the sex…..anyway?”
I’ve now got ASIO also running a facebook and twitter account slandering me and a .info site as well.
Would be nice for a few more people to notice that Dads and and prostitutes have the same criminal abusers.
And what if pregnant women don’t eat the diet some busybody thinks they should? Or works longer than they should? And of course, whores should have their babies taken away, just because!
Back when I was a feminist, our solgan was “Get Your Laws Off My Body”. What happened to that?
Maggie, do you ever take requests? I’d love to see you write about leaving sex work. I’ve done that, it’s been a few years now, but I still miss the hell out of it. How does one adjust?
Comixchik,
thats the point. It is to criminalise normal behaviour in women. Just like today it is a crime for a man to hug his daughter in public and some busy body woman accuses him of being a paedophile? Just as it is now a crime for men to play chess in a park if they do not have children because they MIGHT be paedophile?
Your guvment is about to criminalise normal female behaviour.
Shame you women can’t see that fathers and prostitutes have the same adversaries. Guvment and women. It would work better if you actually reached out to fathers and colaborated the way that I have offered.
I do take requests; normally what happens is I say, “I really don’t think I can find anything to say about that,” then within a few hours change my mind and write it. But in this case I can immediately see that it would be a great subject; look for it sometime early in August. 🙂
Well I was going to dispute the pregnant women being allowed to trash their bodies. I work in law enforcement and the results of the crack head mother is a sad sight. The fact is that the medical field doesn’t really know how drugs effect a fetus, or at least there is still a lot to learn about it. However if they are able to prove the mother is the direct cause of the harm caused to the fetus that she intended to birth, I have no problem with convicting them. My issue with this prosecution is the fact that its hypocritical and there just isn’t enough known about pregnancy and the effects of various outside chemicals. If what the woman did to a child she intended to give birth was harmful and it can be proven that she was aware, do you really believe that these women should be allowed to harm the fetus? As far as the state sponsored domestic abuse prosecution, I believe this is a reaction by frustrated law enforcement agencies that are tired of being called out to an incident, their help is requested because of this violent argument, only to have the victim cool off drop the charges and go right back to the same situation and eventually have to call law enforcement again for the next arguement. It seems that in the situation of domestic abuse, law enforcement is damned if they do, damned it they don’t.
The problem as I and many others see it is the old slippery slope. Giving the government any power over individuals’ bodies merely opens the door to greater and greater abuses, and before you know it we’re all chattels of the state. Prosecutors don’t care about justice; they care about scoring points, and as long as we allow them to twist laws in order to play their sadistic games they will continue to do so.
As for the domestic abuse prosecution, I frankly don’t give a damn how frustrated cops and agencies are by the situation; every job in the world has frustrating features, but we don’t go around ripping apart families, committing people to enormous legal bills and trampling on individual rights because teachers, grocers, appliance salesmen or taxi drivers are frustrated. If you find a job frustrating, quit; individuals are not required to grease the wheels of bureaucracy with their blood. Mandatory domestic abuse prosecution helps to establish the precedent that women, like children, are unable to make personal decisions for themselves.
You are correct about the slippery slop. The justice system is overcome with ignorant citizens who are subject to prosecutors that are out for what they can get and are forced to rely on overworked public defenders that are just trying to get the case closed as soon as possible. Neither party is truely trying to help the defendant. As for the job frustrations, true all jobs have them and if you don’t like them you have the right to quit. However, if we are taking that philosophy, can we not also say that if you don’t like the way law enforcement handles your domestic abuse situation, then you shouldn’t call them to deal with it. At the end of the day, assuming it was one of the participating parties that called the authorities to handle the dispute (and it normally is) then you are essentially saying that it is in fact out of your control and you need help.
Here you go Maggie….I am sure glad the cops spent tax payers money shutting down the lemonade stand. I feel so much safer now..
And notice how ‘butch’ the big tough female cop is who shut down the stand!!
Guess you have to teach these little girls young that the ‘law is the law’…especially when it’s not! LOL!!
This is terrific. I have a column request: extrapolate upon the entire topic, especially the ideas put forth in last paragraph 🙂
Hmm, I’ll give that some thought. 😉
I always bother me when I see a pregnant woman smoking. But really, if she can get an abortion, it’s a bit much to say she can’t smoke. And while AFAIK there hasn’t been a case of a pregnant woman who miscarried being charged with murder for smoking, I don’t see how you can avoid it if she can be charged with murder for using coke. It isn’t the illegality of the drug that led to the murder charge, but the miscarriage. So cocaine, tobacco, what’s the difference?
And thank you thank you thank you for pointing out that she’s a child when it’s time to make choices, but an adult when it’s time to be punished. Basically, she’s a child when that’s convenient, and an adult when that’s convenient. Shazam! indeed.
> But really, if she can get an abortion, it’s a bit much to say she can’t smoke.
If she gets an abortion, or drives the fetus to miscarriage, she’s preventing a person. If she smokes, she’s creating a fucked-up person. The former of these is, as far as I’m concerned, neutral. The latter is one of the worst things one can do.