this is america?

last january, in allegheny pennsylvania, a pregnant woman died from pneumonia that she contracted while in prison. she complained for weeks to the guards that she was having trouble breathing and was coughing up mucous. they refused to allow her to see a doctor. a sick pregnant woman. IN JAIL. by the time she was sent to the hospital it had become a bacterial infection so severe it could not be cured and she died 12 days later.

she was in prison because she got pregnant on her work-release and it was a violation of her probation. her probation was for shoplifting. food. she also had a previous conviction for prostitution. without it being stated in any of the linked articles i found, i suspect this woman came from a dire economic stance. she was black and from a very depressed area of the country and her petty crimes are those borne of desperation, aren't they?

i'm flabbergasted enough that the state forbade her from getting knocked up (my body, my rights, and all that), especially since her crime had nothing to do with being a mom, fit or not. but if that is a stipulation, shouldn't they have provided her with birth control? was she in fact sentenced to abstinence?

but then, even putting aside this astounding patriarchal hysteria, how on the planet earth can putting a pregnant woman in the slammer be thought prudent and judicious? is that not cruel and unusual? and then for guards to play some sort of petty bullshit power game and deny her medical care? this noodle knows there are plenty of prisoners capable of gaming the system and just as many guards who can only function thinking their wards are pieces of shit to be scraped from the hell of their boots. but for the love of mary.

she was 18 weeks pregnant and now she's dead.

21st century amurrica.