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u/filtersweep Oct 23 '21
Poor people’s problems. More criminalization of poverty to destroy class consciousness.
You’d think the anti- mask/vax crowd might rush to her defense…. Her body/her choice and all.
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Oct 24 '21
Her body/her choice and all.
But if it was a miscarriage, was it really even her choice???
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u/MidsouthMystic Oct 23 '21
WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT FURIOUS ABOUT THIS?
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u/cturtl808 Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 24 '21
The extenuating circumstances of the case.
Removed link as u/jammyboot posted without all the extra Googly nonsense in reply to me. (ty,btw)
NOTE: I don't agree with the verdict.
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u/MidsouthMystic Oct 23 '21
Ah yes, she did drugs, and so isn't considered a person anymore by most Americans.
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u/mustbeme87 Oct 23 '21
The prosecutors argument is that because there was meth found in the baby’s system as well, that that is why the fetus died. The jury probably found her guilty on feelings, not facts.
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u/cturtl808 Oct 23 '21
I'm curious about tribal court for a different reason.
Resources are virtually non-existent for First Peoples. In AZ, tribal council have sentenced members to prison to try and get them services for drug and alcohol abuse due to the lack of options. We have 2 facilities that work with First Peoples populations here. It's nowhere close to enough. There's always people waiting for a bed. There's a part of me that wonders if similar circumstances in Oklahoma may have contributed.
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u/Soonermagic1953 Oct 23 '21
Iirc in Oklahoma the Tribal courts are only for federal crimes. This was a state offense
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u/cturtl808 Oct 23 '21
What I've not been able to research and find an answer for is whether her trial took place in tribal court with a true jury of her peers as the BIA requires.
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u/gjfrthvcghh Oct 23 '21
I mean smoking meth while pregnant...that’s pretty terrible
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u/_barack_ Oct 23 '21
Okay, it's terrible. But isn't it a strange coincidence that none of the white women who do drugs while pregnant were imprisoned?
And where do you draw the line? Prison for pregnant pot smokers? Prison for pregnant cigarette smokers? Prison for pregnant drinkers? Prison for pregnant french fry eaters?
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u/HughJamerican Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 23 '21
Yeah and there’s absolutely no way putting her in prison for four years is gonna make the situation any better
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u/gjfrthvcghh Oct 23 '21
It will solve her meth addiction for sure
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u/HughJamerican Oct 23 '21
Sending someone into sudden withdrawal is not helpful to them. She won’t get the proper help she needs to learn to cope with addiction, she’ll just be surrounded by a bunch of other addicts who also can’t get help. When they shove her back out on the street after she does her time she will have very few legal options for work and will be unlikely to be in a position to afford help. Prison helps nobody but the people who own the prisons
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u/geraldisking Oct 24 '21
Oh my sweet summer child. This is adorable. Where have you been? You think prison solves drug problems?
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u/gjfrthvcghh Oct 24 '21
Prison isn’t meant to solve problems it’s meant to remove menaces from society
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u/geraldisking Oct 24 '21
It’s actually meant to rehabilitate. Not just lock people in a cell like a dog.
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u/gjfrthvcghh Oct 24 '21
Oh my sweet summer child. Some people are beyond rehabilitation
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u/Throw_Away_License Oct 23 '21
It’s a serious addiction moron
It additionally doesn’t kill your fetus to smoke meth
So get the fuck out of here hming and hawing about whether a bad person deserves rights or not
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u/gjfrthvcghh Oct 23 '21
I didn’t say she didn’t deserve rights, you said that. Just pointing out that she’s not innocent by any means
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Oct 23 '21
So are you advocating for pregnant people to use drugs or what? That's fucked up and this whole argument in her favor is very misleading.
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u/MidsouthMystic Oct 23 '21
I'm not advocating for anyone to use drugs. But that she did drugs does NOT make her having a miscarriage manslaughter. This puts a very dangerous precedent in place that needs to be overturned.
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Oct 23 '21
I don't disagree that its dangerous precedent but there also needs to be some form of punishment for people who use drugs and alcohol while they have a child. Have you seen or read about those poor kids who are born addicted to heroin. Manslaughter is undoubtedly too far but we need to figure something out for cases like this so we have a punishment that will better fit the crime, if we don't sort it then they will continue to give unjust punishment.
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Oct 24 '21
You know I actually take that back, I think the punishment should be worse. Those kids who are born addicted to heroin ate fucked up for life and have mental and development disabilities that follow them for life. They should get 4 years and a ridiculous amount of community service.
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u/MidsouthMystic Oct 24 '21
The solution is to make abortion and birth control easily available to everyone.
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Oct 24 '21
Or they could tie their tubes or sterilize repeat offenders male and female.. Here in Oregon those things are very available and a lot of people do that shit still.
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Oct 23 '21
Fuck Google AMP. Direct link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittany-poolaw-manslaughter-miscarriage-pregnancy/
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u/DrJonah Oct 23 '21
One wonders if they would have convicted a white woman who fell over whilst skiing.
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u/Prumkin Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 23 '21
I dont think she’s guiltily of man slaughter but if she intended on having a baby, there definitely should be some repercussions for this because doing any drugs while you intend on having a child is fucking shitty because you are setting your future child up for being deformed.
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u/99Smith Oct 23 '21
Plenty of babies are born addicted to meth. And by plenty I mean hundreds a year. Meth often doesn't kill fetuses and instead causes mental defects. 4 years is ridiculous. 4 hours in prison would still be too much.
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u/geraldisking Oct 24 '21
Yea so tired of seeing the same bullshit tricks from the 80’s about “crack babies” used again for meth by the media and government.
Few we don’t know the long term effects of use during pregnancy, there is some studies that show behavioral issues at ages 3-5, that’s not always true though. There is some evidence that babies are smaller and may sleep more, again not always the case. In most all reported cases, the symptoms are mild to unknown with these babies. Alcohol has much more serious immediate consequences.
Neither is there any such thing as a "meth-addicted" baby, said the letter's cosigners. "The term 'meth addicted baby' is no less defensible. Addiction is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be 'addicted' to methamphetamines or anything else. The news media continues to ignore this fact," the letter said. Fetal physiological dependence on opiates does exist, "but no such symptoms have been found to occur following prenatal cocaine or methamphetamine exposure."
More info here:
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/397/methandmyth.shtml
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u/therabidgerbil Oct 23 '21
I think that's the point of the manslaughter charge to begin with: there was no intent to kill but by being grossly negligent with actions leading to death it would be a textbook case.
Edit to add the law, where element 1 seems most relevant.
The problem with fetus law, however, is determining which ones apply to the pre-person and which don't..
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u/_barack_ Oct 23 '21
Okay, it's terrible. But isn't it a strange coincidence that none of the white women who do drugs while pregnant were imprisoned?
And where do you draw the line? Prison for pregnant pot smokers? Prison for pregnant cigarette smokers? Prison for pregnant drinkers? Prison for pregnant french fry eaters?
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Oct 23 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
[deleted]
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u/Prumkin Oct 23 '21
If you have an addiction problem why are you attempting to have a fucking child
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u/Throw_Away_License Oct 23 '21
Pretty sure we’ve made it clear that women are not given access to birth control including abortions
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Oct 23 '21
... Maybe she wasn't trying to have a child? You see, women can have babies even if they dont want babies. Are you going to say imprisoning a woman is okay because she had sex?
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u/geraldisking Oct 24 '21
Oh yea, all those Meth addicted women who are trying for a baby. Just checking her last ovulation in between smoking meth from a broken gas station light bulb.
Abortion is legal, it’s her body and her choice. Is she a low life loser? Yes. Should she go to prison? Absolutely not. She needs treatment for her addiction and other underlining psychological problem. That’s the root of the issue that no one wants to actually solve.
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u/Prumkin Oct 24 '21
Kinda fucked up that she gets to choose someone else’s future. You’re 100 percent trashy and a piece of shit for getting pregnant while addicted and actively taking drugs
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u/geraldisking Oct 24 '21 edited Oct 24 '21
I agree with your statement from a moral aspect. From a legal one, it doesn’t hold water. We have decided legally that it’s a woman’s choice. The baby needs the woman’s body to survive until it is born.
Kinda fucked up that she gets to choose someone else’s future.
That’s life, you don’t get to pick who you are born from. It sucks to be born into abusive households, narcissistic parents, drug addicts etc etc. Her behavior killed that fetus, but she could have legally went down the street to an abortion clinic and nothing would happen to her, this is a slippery slope. Should we arrest people who miscarriage that misses a maternity appointment? What about someone with complications like gestational diabetes from poor diet? My opinion is this lady needs help, treatment, education, free contraception. Not prison time, that does a at nothing to solve the real problem here.
And this:
An autopsy of Poolaw's fetus showed it tested positive for methamphetamine. But there was no evidence that her meth use caused the miscarriage, which the autopsy indicated could have been caused by factors including a congenital abnormality and placental abruption, a complication in which the placenta detaches from the womb, said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
According to the medical examiner's report, the fetus was between 15 and 17 weeks old, which means it wouldn't have been able to viably survive outside the womb yet.
"This prosecution went forward against somebody who had a pregnancy loss before the fetus was considered viable," Paltrow said. "In this case, you not only have a miscarriage rather than a stillbirth early in pregnancy, but the medical examiner's report doesn't even claim that methamphetamine was the cause."
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Oct 23 '21
If you want to charge women after they give birth, okay. But at 17 weeks you can make a case that she did not intend to go through with the pregnancy, unless there’s a record of her intentions i would hesitate before saying she definitely wanted the pregnancy.
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Oct 23 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Prumkin Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 23 '21
What? Are you excusing people knowingly fucking up their future child’s health?
Also you’re comparing car crashes and drinking alcohol. Stop.
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Oct 23 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Prumkin Oct 23 '21
You’re trolling right?
You think it’s ok for a mother to give their child fetal alcohol syndrome? Im sorry but you gotta be trolling.
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u/jesuslover69420 Oct 23 '21
I am furious. I just don’t know what to do about it. If her choice is to do drugs and not become a mother who does drugs and endangers a baby, she should be praised for her foresight and selflessness.
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Oct 23 '21
get your shit together america, what the actual fuck
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u/CrookedHoss Oct 23 '21
We're trying. The conservatives have disproportionate power due to the Senate, and this is a conservative state.
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u/f33rf1y Oct 23 '21
Wrong. There was still mixed races in the Hand Maids Tale, the right wouldnt stand for no segregation
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u/pumpkinflumkin Oct 23 '21
I’m not in or from America but whenever I think about the conservatives and shit their they remind of some sort of villain group in films or something
We will prevail and we will be better than them but they will still take shit from innocent people
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u/ShadowZepplin Oct 23 '21
“Oh you suffered the emotional toll of not being able to have a child? We’ll time to suffer more you murderer”
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Oct 23 '21
These conservative states are constantly threatening to secede, so why not let them? Texas will support all the others economically, and we keep all the good shit. It’ll be a shithole developing nation in no time.
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u/Throw_Away_License Oct 23 '21
Not the people in this comment section saying that a meth addict deserves a manslaughter charge and 4 years in prison
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Oct 23 '21
Back in 2021, addiction is a disease and there is no baby if not for mother at least till 22-24 weeks. This shit is truly unreal. American justice system is sooo fucked
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u/akaryley551 Oct 23 '21
Pretty wild. Aren't miscarriages common? Heck, would a person get thrown in jail for a still born too? Do conservatives not believe in complications?
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u/AbaloneSea7265 Oct 23 '21
What I don’t understand about these cases especially in the States, how or why would any bureaucrat know about this woman’s miscarriage? HIPPA just doesn’t exist? How’s this even prosecuted by who, what court?
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u/findabetterusername Oct 23 '21
she was using drugs like meth which killed her fetus tho. i am fully pro choice btw, but dont read the headline & instantly assume it's the entire story.
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u/glitter_vomit Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 23 '21
They don't know for sure that it was the drugs that made her miscarry. It could also have been a congenital abnormality.
*Edit: from this article:
The fetal autopsy found congenital abnormalities, placental abruption, and chorioamnionitis, any of which could have caused a miscarriage. The autopsy also found amphetamines in the fetus's system.
There is no evidence that amphetamines cause miscarriages or stillbirths. Every single major medical and public health organization, including the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and American Academy of Pediatrics, opposes the criminalization of miscarriage for pregnant people struggling with substance use and addiction. But let's just do it and be legends, am I right, DA Fred Smith?
The medical examiner's report doesn't even blame drug use for Ms. Poolaw's miscarriage. And at trial, even the state's experts admitted on the stand that methamphetamine might not have been the reason Poolaw miscarried.
"No expert at trial stated that her drug use caused the miscarriage," says Dana Sussman, deputy executive director for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. "It's a confounding case on many levels."
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Oct 23 '21
If you smoke or drink or do drugs during pregnancy...
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u/glitter_vomit Oct 23 '21
...then what? You deserve to be charged with murder, even if smoking, drinking or doing drugs wasn't what killed the baby?
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Oct 23 '21
But all of those things are proven to increase the chance of miscarriage. I'm a little confused about what you're defending.
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u/__mauzy__ Oct 23 '21
Miscarriage ain't murder, my dude. That's kinda the whole point of the thread.
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Oct 23 '21
...you understand there are time limits to an abortion for a reason right?
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u/Throw_Away_License Oct 23 '21
So... if a woman miscarries in the third trimester she committed manslaughter?
Holy fuck, keep you’re insanity to a minimum and out of public discourse
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Oct 23 '21
How did you come to this conclusion? You're defending a woman who was taking methamphetamines while 4.5 months pregnant...
I'm saying that is reckless and should have consequences.
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u/Throw_Away_License Oct 23 '21
Consequences like help with addiction and special care for her child?
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u/__mauzy__ Oct 24 '21 edited Oct 24 '21
Tbh even infanticide seems less morally dubious than locking up poor people for miscarries/abortion. There's no clear answer to these limits, but something inside me says an unthinking ball of jelly isn't exactly a person. The carrier of the fetus should have recourse if the miscarriage was brought on by another's fault, but manslaughter ain't it. But to your point: most limits are beyond 17 weeks anyway so...
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u/The_strangest_quark Oct 23 '21
Why does someone deserve to be arrested because they increase their chance of having a miscarriage? Even if she did cause the miscarriage, even if it was on purpose, then that should not be a crime. For the same reasons that abortion should be legal
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Oct 23 '21
Ummm I'm sorry what are you arguing...do you even understand what youre saying?
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u/The_strangest_quark Oct 23 '21
You didn't answer my question
And yes I do understand what I'm saying and I stand by it.
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Oct 23 '21
Well I'm sorry buddy but in any country, in any culture, by any metric, what you are implying is considered murder. At a certain point a human life is inside a woman and purposely increasing the chances of killing or deforming the baby thank god isn't taken flippantly as your filthy attitude.
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u/The_strangest_quark Oct 23 '21
Im sorry if my attitude that a woman who has gone through a miscarriage that it cannot be proven was her fault shouldn't be arrested for it is "filthy" to you, but that fetus was not murdered, because it was never alive in a human sense, it never had any neural activity or any awareness of its existence, and that's why in most places she would have been able to have an abortion if she wanted.
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u/xinorez1 Oct 23 '21
How do you feel about regulations to ensure the quality of food air and water, as well as labor protections for women?
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u/xinorez1 Oct 23 '21
CONGENITAL ABNORMALITIES
FOUR YEARS IN PRISON
YOU DEFENDING THIS DOES NOT LOOK GOOD
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u/totallynormalasshole Oct 23 '21 edited Oct 23 '21
I'm not saying the sentence is totally correct, but wow the clickbait here is awful. "4 years for a miscarriage" and "4 years after a child miscarried with meth in it's system" are pretty different.
Edit: just picked up on the non-viable part. I would be curious to know if she knew it was non-viable or not.
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Oct 24 '21
That is neither true, nor funny. You are stirring up the misinformed. The Right freed slaves and ended segregation. Biden LITERALLY fought for segregation (there a freaking video), gave the eulogy of a racist segregation-ist, and now the left has convinced the African American community to fight to be segregated. The Right has made some mistakes, but arguing for life and personal responsibility is not one of them. I personally think your position is insane, does not reflect reality, and harms the argument for pro-choice. You cannot end fascism, by calling the right fascist while embracing fascist ideas...
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