The Criminalization of Bad Mothers
Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesTimmy Kimbrough at home with his daughter Josie, 2, and his stepdaughters, Nicole, 13, and Brooke Borden, 10, left. His wife, shown in the framed photograph, is in jail.
Published: April 25, 2012
On a rainy day just after Thanksgiving, Amanda Kimbrough played with her 2-year-old daughter in her raw-wood-paneled living room, petting her terriers and half-watching TV. Kimbrough, who is 32, lives a few miles outside Russellville, a town of fewer than 10,000 in rural northwestern Alabama, near the border of Franklin and Colbert Counties. Textiles were the economic engine of the area until the 1990s, when the industry went into decline and mills shut down. Now one of the region?s leading employers is Pilgrim?s, a chicken supplier. The median household income is $31,213, and more than a third of children live below the poverty line.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Heather Capps, 25, and her 5-month-old son, Malice, at a halfway house in Albertville, Ala. She was arrested after her son tested positive for Oxycodone.
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As family members came in and out of the room and one daytime show slid into another ? ?The People?s Court,? ?Intervention,? ?Jerry Springer,? ?The Ellen DeGeneres Show? ? Kimbrough talked about her arrest following the death of her third child, Timmy Jr. Born premature at 25 weeks on April 29, 2008, Timmy Jr. weighed 2 pounds 1 ounce, and lived only 19 minutes. When Kimbrough tested positive for methamphetamine, her two daughters were swiftly removed from her custody, and for 90 days, she was allowed only supervised visits. Social services mandated parenting classes and drug treatment.
That would have been a typical response in most places, but Alabama is different. Six months after Timmy Jr.?s death, the district attorney in Colbert County charged Kimbrough with chemical endangerment of a child, a Class A felony (because the infant died) that carries a mandatory sentence of 10 years to life. She turned herself in, and bail was set at $250,000. At the trial, the state completed its case in two days. On the advice of her lawyer, Kimbrough then pleaded guilty and received the minimum sentence of 10 years.
According to Kyle Brown, the chief assistant district attorney in the case, Kimbrough might have received far more time if a jury had found her guilty. ?She caused the death of another person,? Angela Hulsey, an assistant district attorney on the case, said, ?a person that will never have the chance to go to school, go to the prom, get married, have children of their own. You?re dealing with the most innocent of victims.?
When I met Kimbrough last fall, she was free on an appeal bond. (Her plea bargain allows her lawyers to appeal her conviction on constitutional grounds without contesting the specifics of her case.) Kimbrough said she never had a big problem with meth, but admitted that she started using the drug in her mid-20s, after her first marriage collapsed. When she was pregnant with Timmy Jr., she did meth only once, she told me.
?One time,? she said. ?I don?t even know why I done it. I guess the Devil knocked on my shoulder that day.? Otherwise, Kimbrough insisted, she abstained from drugs during her pregnancy, even refusing painkillers for an infected tooth for fear they would hurt the baby. Timmy Jr.?s birth had many potentially complicating factors, including prematurity and a prolapsed cord. Kimbrough says she was eager to have the child ? she had always wanted a boy. She and her husband, Timmy Sr., were told at an early-April prenatal visit that Timmy Jr. would likely have Down syndrome, and while abortion was an option, the Kimbroughs, who oppose abortion on moral grounds, did not consider it. ?We didn?t care if he was special needs,? Timmy Sr. said. ?We would have loved him.?
Kimbrough told me that she was devastated by the loss of her baby and scared of being locked up. She described a recent visit to her brother in prison, where he is serving time for burglary and other charges, and how upset she was by the place.
?I feel for people on drugs,? she continued. ?You got to stay away from people that?s on them. I learned that in rehab, and I been clean ever since. I feel like I iced the cake with this one. To me, losing a child. . . . ? She stared off into space.
continued (very long)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/the-criminalization-of-bad-mothers.html?_r=1&hp
Re: The Criminalization of Bad Mothers
"This ribbon has been reported." - lovesnina
I have a lot to say about this but I want to finish the article first.
However, I want to point out that I find it hilarious that they oppose abortion on moral grounds while doing meth during pregnancy is apparently OK.
I feel differently about this story now that I've seen the wild and wonderful whites of west virginia (on netflix streaming).
Before I would have been all cultural relativism, and give them a chance, yada yada yada. Now I'm of the opinion that sometimes the whole thing and everyone involved is just so farked up that it's hopeless. Little Malice might not be with his chronically unemployed meth addict mother, he'll be with his chronically unemployed meth addict grandmother. Same old same old.
Right??
I'm squicky about the family featured in this article. Seems to me it's difficult to link the premature birth of the baby directly to the meth use. With such a myriad of problems how can you be certain it's the drug use that was ultimately to blame?
Also, there is no way I believe she only did meth once while pregnant. It's just not a one and done type of drug.
Click me, click me!
Are we really unable to make a distinction between legal abortion and criminal acts that cause the death of a fetus?
Because I'm pretty sure that while it's legal for me to take prescription drugs, I can still and will go to jail for hitting the meth pipe.
If you don't want to be pregnant, have an abortion. But I don't think it's unreasonable for society to decide that smoking rock while pregnant is bad juju in general, and punishable by jail time is certain instances.
Click me, click me!
I know the article is really long, but part of the issue is by making what she did (drug use during pregnancy) a crime there are implications on what rights you give to an unborn child that could impact abortion.
And because I can't read the whole long article just yet...Malice???
I'll be back later with my thoughts on the actual article.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DConsidering I had a pregnancy aborted against my will by a nurse midwife, who I then had to have a long legal battle with to get her put behind bars, and then I got to make the very emotional decision to not pursue past charges against me (i.e. charges of her murdering my fetus) because I really didn't want my court case to set a precedent of fetal personhood that could be used to bar other women from getting abortions (at least in the state of Connecticut), I know all about how messed up tackling issues of abortion access and fetal personhood can be.
But you know, despite nearly bleeding to death and violently losing a pregnancy as a teenager and having to make those choices after my choice was callously withheld from me, I still contend that we don't live The Handmaid's Tale.
That's really all I have to say about it- I am rabidly pro-choice, and just because I don't think stupid hyperbole doesn't really help matters, doesn't negate that.
And with that, I'm out for the day, PCE.
I just read the part the H4S C&P'ed but that is my feeling. Punish her for whatever the regular punishment for being on meth is (or heck, make a special longer sentence for being on meth while pg!). But it gives me the willies that they can try her for killing the baby.
If taking the drug is illegal, then it's illegal, not illegal but super bonus shiv time illegal if you're pregnant. I can't think of any good reason why different laws should apply to the actions of pregnant women than the laws that apply to absolutely everyone else, except good old-fashioned misogyny.
I don't believe you. Sorry.
Did you make it to page 8? Apparently the article's author has been hanging around PCE...
But the expansion of fetal-homicide and chemical-endangerment laws have some people on the other side of the debate reaching for their copies of ?The Handmaid?s Tale,? Margaret Atwood?s dystopian novel in which women are enslaved as childbearers.
?We?re heading toward this Margaret Atwood-like society,? Ketteringham says. ?The idea that the state needs to threaten and punish women so that they do the right thing during pregnancy is appalling. Everyone talks about the personhood of the fetus, but what?s really at stake is the personhood of women. It starts with the use of an illegal drug, but what happens as a consequence of that precedent is that everything a woman does while she?s pregnant becomes subject to state regulation.
?It starts with cocaine, and then it?s cigarettes and alcohol. How much alcohol? And when? It?s only a matter of time until it comes to refusing a bed-rest order because you need to work and take care of your other children and then you have a miscarriage. What if you stay at a job where you?re exposed to toxic chemicals, as at a dry cleaner? What if you keep taking your S.S.R.I.?s during pregnancy? If a woman is told that sex during her pregnancy could be a risk to the fetus, and the woman has sex anyway and miscarries, are you going to prosecute the woman ? and the man too??
Wow. That seems...unnecessary.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D
Yikes, MrDob. Unnecessary x a lot!
RE: the article-- I am with Kuus that if the person using illegal drugs is caught via drug testing then they should go to jail. I do not feel that the punishment for breaking the law should be more strict if the perpetrator happens to be female & pregnant.
Should a fetus die & it is attributed to the mother's drug use (& no other cause is found. I am talking everything else being ruled out) then I do not think that the mother should be prosecuted. I think she should be given resources to deal with her loss & drug treatment/rehab.
I do not believe this woman only smoked/shot-up/snorted meth just ONCE throughout her pg. Meth is hardly ever a one-hit-&-over-it drug from what I have read. However, throwing her in jail strictly for using during pregnancy opens the door to even more policing about how much control a woman has over her body. What's next? Throwing a woman in the clink for drinking during gestation of her kid comes out with FAS? What about smoking? It's not something I would do, personally, but it's a slippery slope towards outlawing abortion I think. I am not ok with that.
This case is really sad, but throwing this wan away to jail doesn't help anyone. The child is still dead, & she will most likely not get the therapy/treatment she needs in jail. No one wins.
Also, WTF about fathers? Can we throw them in the jail for being deadbeats?
ETA: her other kids didn't go to foster care. Also, why is the father off the hook? He must have been witness to his wife getting high? Doesn't he (by this weird law jailing of women who use drugs while pg, have a moral obligation as well to prevent harm to the fetus by getting his wife help for her drug addiction?