the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 25, 2021
More and more poor women are being prosecuted if they have a miscarriage due to problems in pregnancy. When a Native American woman from Oklahoma was 19, she miscarried at 17 weeks. At the hospital, on her medical history, she said she had used marijuana and methamphetamine. Someone called the police. She was arrested and charged with manslaughter for her miscarriage. She was jailed for a year and a half because she didn’t have money for the $20,000 bond set by the prosecutor. Last week, this young woman had a jury trial in which she was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Prison because of a miscarriage! When up to 50% of successful fertilizations end in miscarriage!
Since 2006, the anti-abortion movement has been working to change state laws to define fetuses as “people.” The National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) say that cases of pregnant women facing criminal charges for endangering fetuses has increased 400% in the past 15 years to 1,254 cases.
This past year a mother in Arizona who took medical marijuana under a doctor’s orders for pain before giving birth to her son was accused of child neglect for substance use while pregnant and placed on the state’s Child Abuse Central Registry for 25 years. She is fighting the charges. An upcoming decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals on her case could set a precedent for future moms.
Such prosecutions have increased because a well-funded minority of the population wants to be sure a pregnant woman has no choice over what happens to her or her fetus. Under the guise of giving “personhood” to fetuses, legislators and prosecutors deny “personhood” to the women who are pregnant. They will not allow a woman the right to control what happens in her own life—and they pretend they are being moral!
These disgusting attacks on women as human beings are not new. Many eras have treated women as less than human. Young women today will have to step up for their rights, as others did previously.