Unknown Speaker 00:01 clicks and clicks to stop. will start my name is Linda Powell tro and I'm the person who's supposed to be speaking to today. One of the talk is called it's actually The Handmaid's Tale from the brave new world. And I titled my talk that for I give it a double literary reference in case there's a generation of people who haven't really seen a movie. I work at the American Civil Liberties Union reproductive freedom project, and I've been doing reproductive litigation and public education for about seven or eight years. And when I started, I began by doing primarily contraceptive and abortion cases. And eventually, I began to do cases that have included the full range of what falls under the title of reproductive freedom, which includes being able to become pregnant and continue a pregnancy without being molested interfered with in any way by the state. And I'm going to talk to you about some of my cases and give you some of the information about what's happening around the country, which is pretty nightmarish. But I'd like to first if we could just go around the room and you could say your name and either what you do or something about what you do that brought you to this particular page. Unknown Speaker 01:35 My name is Roxanne Dennison. Unknown Speaker 01:37 I'm a naturalist at Nam Unknown Speaker 01:42 m&e algorithm also an activist in your city just Unknown Speaker 02:00 for any particular reason Unknown Speaker 02:06 like the way the system was operating within that system Unknown Speaker 02:13 I was particularly curious if they were asking you for example to prosecute criminals Unknown Speaker 02:18 No, I was defending Unknown Speaker 02:25 you back I work in a pet clinic mental health clinic as a therapist low income with doobly Unknown Speaker 02:43 doo city for about 10 years mostly agree rights issues which is why I need to do some research. Unknown Speaker 03:01 Research researchers School Unknown Speaker 03:09 graduate gardener last day and they were doing social work and then women who are Unknown Speaker 03:21 wondering because I work as a family alcohol counselor in the present moment Unknown Speaker 03:33 where is this woman? Unknown Speaker 03:34 No but where were in New York City Unknown Speaker 03:42 but Susanna for a director, strange shapes, just pamphlet that lists places where homeless addicts can walk in to get help and it lists 20 places for addicts to walk in oneself for phases. We've discovered which we handed out directly on the street. And they're there even three persons are there. They're all there. My name is Randy, student public health Unknown Speaker 04:23 law enforcement student and Unknown Speaker 04:26 politically active Unknown Speaker 04:30 My name is Katie as I graduate from Greiner need Unknown Speaker 04:34 to graduate in Northeastern University Law School. Just Shubho doctoral student Julie Cohen, I'm a reporter for a web. Marcus, Unknown Speaker 04:51 American I'm an editor. Unknown Speaker 04:54 My name is challenged to be some arguments actually an anti bigotry Community College Unknown Speaker 05:17 I've also returned to school you know, I'm not seeking my bachelor if you're a college student lot of volunteer work for nationalization. Unknown Speaker 05:45 My name is Pearl silver, fine. Unknown Speaker 05:48 I just come to the incompetence because I get this tissues. And I right now I'm going to make my fourth attempt Unknown Speaker 06:03 I would like to start, I will be asking you a question. But I start by making a confession that often surprises people, which is that one of my heroes is Casper Weinberger, the former Secretary of Defense wasn't under Reagan. And the reason is, in one regard, and that is that when Casper was told there's not enough money for a new missile, and there's not enough money for something else in the Defense Department. Kaspar didn't go home, he stood up and said, What do you mean, there's not enough money, there has to be enough money for this, this is important, you're talking about the country's future in defense of everything. And he made impassioned speeches, he would not allow them to cut his budget. And he would get money that he wanted, maybe not everything, but much more than he ever we want him to or ever expected. He was a visionary, not about things that I'm a visionary about. But when he was told that there wasn't money to keep bought for him anyway. And I think that's something that progressives have stopped doing that we believe these legislators when they tell us there's not enough money to go around. We believe that our programs are impossible. We believe that if the solution is more programs, more treatment, more money, we can't get it because we're in some kind of a time when those things aren't available. And I think that that's part of the reason that we're in the mess that we're in that we've stopped demanding what it is what knowing what we want and then demanding the money to do it. So my first question to you is, I want you to imagine that you live in a country that is run by compassionate and intelligent legislators This is particularly hard for me having just come back from the Arizona legislature but I'll tell you about that. You live in a country where there are compassionate and intelligent legislators and there's enough money for any program or thing that you want to introduce what programs or policies would you introduce to ensure the healthiest possible parents and children and what I want you to do is just figure out how to find another person to talk to and just for a couple of minutes come up with what programs or policies and you have to assume that whatever it is that you want is possible to get the healthiest possible parents and children. Right so thanks care every day right so much My name is Matt the way to the city dangerous replacement solution that was promised next Keisha chatrooms not sure how to do that its various areas Unknown Speaker 11:41 surrounding Unknown Speaker 11:49 this chairs the chairs the chairs up okay in addition to wrapping up the slide down on the side you also want to share sharing shares slide down here it does really Okay, could you tell me some of the ideas that y'all came up with? Unknown Speaker 13:00 Well, we were talking about various things, which is the it'd been very necessary to start from a very tender, very young age to educate children about their health, and about all aspects of keeping healthy also to provide basically rid of the entire medical structure and provide people with comprehensive medical care from for free, basically. But focusing on prevention and community based centers where you know, things like pregnancy and such are taken out of the intensive care hospitals, which are only really for very problematic pregnancies and putting it back in the community safe from the system. Lay or nurse midwives and other people would handle a sort of a situation without having to go into a horrible hospital. Unknown Speaker 13:59 But most of the focus being on prevention Unknown Speaker 14:01 and care of the human being Unknown Speaker 14:07 which clogs up Unknown Speaker 14:13 your time talking about every? So what did we ask him? Unknown Speaker 14:19 We came up with something similar to well, it's probably the same exact thing is they figured out what we could do that it would have to be more women than colleges, obstetricians to suit the needs of women. And they will have to be more women and politics. Unknown Speaker 14:44 To be We also talked about Unknown Speaker 14:51 medical schools having to rearrange or create new curriculum, so I work in a special medical school so Sophie Davis program The CCNY and it's an interesting type of curriculum, they, they have your basic medical school curriculum, but also, it's mandatory for the students to be exposed to the community. So they have to volunteer a certain amount of hours working in community based clinics. So in a way, they are doctors, but at the same time, they're kind of social workers, you know, they're really in touch with the people in the community, not like in big time schools, where there's so much pressure for the students to graduate that they really lose touch with why doctors, so that's something that really needs to be done within the health profession. Unknown Speaker 15:41 We emphasize local community control over the economic and political institutions so that you have people working for 30 hours a week get 40 hours pay, and they would have some counselors, so they would actually be in a workplace. And they would make decisions about what their neighborhood was constructed, so that they wouldn't be so much control. Yeah, so that, yeah, there will be childcare, right, given the setting and work and political decisions to be made, there still will be some centralization, so that some efficient, try to figure out our vision of socialism. 90 seconds, Unknown Speaker 16:30 three minutes you have Unknown Speaker 16:38 welfare to the first income, housing, childcare. Because we have a lot of people and their children in foster care. They don't have the house and they can't get to children, their children they can get so clean, I Unknown Speaker 17:07 think that's to run the definition of health, not necessarily medical services, but more simplistic Unknown Speaker 17:17 services to come before the Unknown Speaker 17:19 others. There's no food, shelter and clothing. Unknown Speaker 17:24 They don't have assets, they can't use it. Unknown Speaker 17:28 We to talk about non cognitive the question, kind of shelter and then also worry about how it can be done in a pleasant way. And when you think of constitutional health, it has to be something that's a pleasure to go to wherever the services that you want. Unknown Speaker 17:54 I have a friend who started a battered women's shelter, and some people wanted to donate furniture. And she said, I have to see. What do you mean, it's free? Oh, no, we have to want our people to want to see. Other Other ideas? Unknown Speaker 18:10 Well, one idea that we count with was in terms of this ideal family. Educating would be heads of family, the parents, in terms of, you know, like some other than traditional, you know, ideas in terms of what parenting is about. So that it's dealt with more from rather a male female perspective. More like a humanistic perspective, family, the good parts of it, Unknown Speaker 18:54 sort of like a breakdown of stereotypes in the end the gender roles, so that responsibility is on everyone, and not just, you know, women and not just the mother of the child, but like, say, a humanistic approach and break down stereotypes. Unknown Speaker 19:17 Well, we discuss education so that nobody is unemployable. Nobody graduates not being able to compete, and also national health. But I think the bottom line is sexism because men's issues get lung cancer concerned. We discuss Unknown Speaker 19:39 something similar to what I was talking about, which was more having to focusing on parenting Unknown Speaker 19:45 and kind of running away from the kind of privacy that's given autonomy, this game to the nuclear family were to kind of bring into a broader social economy. text input events rights are being easily protected by children's rights, women's rights, so at some point so insular? Unknown Speaker 20:16 Well, I'm sure there were other ideas and this kind of a list shows me several things. One is that we have that, you know, our agendas are out there and start to look, and it also shows me some for some people that it's very hard to think about what we want that limits and I think that's the only way you get anything that, for example, your question, we're so used to thinking, it's so hard to think about everybody. We generally think we have to think only about a particular class or subclass. And then, you know, low income housing, why, you know, it's hard to imagine a society do you don't have to think about low income housing, because everybody would have housing that wasn't divided in that way. And it is very hard to it's very, I think, when we're little, we're I mean, most of us have heard, you know, what do you expect to have it all, and so that when somebody says, wanted to imagine how that feels very scary, like, you're gonna get yelled at in five minutes, because you said what you really want. But I also asked people to do this. And I often asked it with a much less sort of educated and sophisticated audience, but like all the audiences I talked to, none of you suggested arresting pregnant women as the solution to the problem. And wow, wow, that seems to be the direction in which we're moving. So I have one more question. Would you raise your hand if you know somebody who hasn't who has or had an addiction problem either with alcohol nicotine or an illegal Unknown Speaker 22:00 what I've been dealing with in the last, since 1985 are a range of cases so that I can give you some back if you have questions or something you can interrupt me and then I want to open it up. I want to give you some I started working on my first Handmaid's Tale. Brand new world is the Pamela Rory Stewart case. And for those of you who haven't heard about, Pamela Ray Stewart was a poor white woman living in the back of trailers with her two young children. And her husband and she was pregnant with her third, I want a child. And on the day of delivery, she appeared at the hospital with severe bleeding severely. And as a result, the baby was born brain damaged, and she almost died. And that six months later, she was arrested and put in jail for seven days, for under charges of child abuse, actually, under a criminal child support statute. They said that it was her prenatal behavior that caused the baby's death and therefore she should be arrested and she should go to jail. The actual thing the actual behaviors that they said were illegal with following failing to follow her doctor's advice. How many of you know somebody who has a Unknown Speaker 23:14 failure to refrain from sexual intercourse? How many of you know they also said she didn't refrain from taking street drugs, something that the prosecutors later admitted had nothing to do with the injuries to the babies, they found a baby they found some traces of meta amphetamines, which could have come from an over the counter into history. And so they knew that that was irrelevant. And they said that she also committed a crime plan and let's make room for this person, maybe get into here. Unknown Speaker 23:51 And they said that she didn't get to the hospital quickly enough. I found I was so upset because just like the other day, I didn't have this case, when I litigated this one, I found a 1953 case from Wyoming. It really fantasizes she where there's a whole paragraph about saying, you know, if you could arrest women for not getting them hospital on time, there'd be an awful lot of women who would be going to jail for giving birth and elevators and taxi cabs and everything else. Which state was this was in California in San Diego. local, local groups organized immediately and one of those groups held a protest outside the courthouse and they accused the prosecutor and they said that they turned the charges against Pamela Ray Stewart as persecution against women and I don't still know to this day don't know if this was a typo, or you know, Freudian slip by the writer. But the newspaper reporter then wrote that the district attorney who brought the case responded by saying I don't intend to persecute women unfairly. Unknown Speaker 24:58 I got involved in the case after I heard about a produce people and call the local attorney in most of these cases, the women are assigned local counsel, most of whom who have barely heard the Constitution and certainly are not experts in reproductive rights law. This local attorney was a very nice man in very open minded and but to give you an idea of sexism sort of in another context, he, his colleagues, his legal colleagues, and his partner at the law firm said to him frequently, I was working, I came in and really started doing this case with another global attorney who was also a woman who and people said to Richard, you know, it's really very nice if you let these girls were on the case. Or they said, why are you letting these girls work on the case with you? This is 1980. The true story behind this case, and I have to ms magazine is the only magazines country that did any investigative reporting on this case whatsoever and learned a lot of that what media does and doesn't do, they simply reported the alleged facts without doing any research. The Truth About Pamela Ray Stewart was that she was a severely battered women woman who was living in poverty. She her husband did you know some of the classic nightmarish things he'd been arrested numerous times for beating her or kicking her in the crotch for throwing the baby against the wall for taking his van and crashing into the car while his wife and his children they were in. And even at one point during this, he tried to get rid of the appointed counsel and have his lawyer, the lawyer always represented him each time was the rest of the battery her to represent his wife, fortunately, we were able to avoid that. Now, if you think about it, if she didn't get to the hospital on time, one of the classic issues for batteries is control. So to go to a hospital, to be in contact with doctors and other people, and that must have been extremely threatening to the spammer and if in fact she did delay and get into the hospital, one can imagine why that was, in addition, you know, to refrain from sexual intercourse, it raises a whole range of questions. Why was she arrested and her husband was that sex consensual, and does the state of course, have any business regulating any of these things, we, we ultimately, were able to get the charges dismissed at the lowest court level, and I did it as an organizing case. In other words, what I tried to do is make the issue lack of access to prenatal health care, and to involve the community and not making an issue of his this particular woman, a bad woman. And we did it by we got the California Medical Society, the California Division of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a bunch of medical groups to come out saying that wrestling was a bad health policy. At about the time that Campbell Ray Stewart was arrested. In the San Diego area in the three months preceding the time that gamma ray Stewart was arrested, over 1200 Women have been turned away for prenatal health care to a wall in that area. And the southern child California Health Network just came out with this beautiful report about prenatal health care in California, with about, you know, 18 different things that people could do some of the things that people are suggesting here to improve prenatal health care in California, doctors don't take MediCal women, OBGYN ins don't take, they don't get enough money for it. It takes too long to papers, they just turn away their whole range of things to make it better. We hope that once we won this case, they would go away that, you know, having sort of brought it into the community garden, the community really came around and community meeting to conservative local newspapers and the television or radio stations all came out saying this is really an issue with prenatal care. But it didn't go away. And it has in the past year, the number of women have increasing the number of women being arrested each year has increased almost exponentially. There are right now this year. Over the last year about 30 women and an article in the USA Today said that they expected that this was the tip of the iceberg and we should expect hundreds more of these cases. I'm in I've been involved in some way or another with most of them. We sent it to an attorney down to South Carolina, where 18 Women have been arrested. What happened apparently was the local hospital which does not provide any treatment care for pregnant women drug addicts decided that wonder several doctors that they would create a protocol whereby the woman did was either showing positive toxicology for a drug or had missed a prenatal care appointment or had not come in suited up for prenatal care shouldn't be reported to the police. Unknown Speaker 29:47 And 80 Women have been arrested in Charleston and Greenville South Carolina and not only are they arrested but they are literally tipped off up hospital cops can be lived day after delivery or the day after delivery. interact with women out and throw them in a jail cell and in one case it will go steal leading from the delivery and jail. jailers had to give her a towel. In Massachusetts, a pregnant woman was driving drunk in her eighth month of pregnancy. And she got into a car accident and miscarry. They arrested her for homicide. And they said it was her own fault for not driving drinking. Fortunately, they were able to get the charges lowered because as it's not uncommon, these cases they found out that the babies the fetus, baby's death was probably due to hospital negligence. More than more than So aside from constitutional issues. Now also representing Jennifer Johnson. Jennifer Johnson is a 23 year old African American woman from Florida. She has a ninth grade education three children and was a cocaine addict. She was pregnant with her fourth baby and during pregnancy she twice turned herself into the emergency room saying I'm I'm really worried that I'm you know, Hi, I'm taking crack. I'm really worried about my baby. I don't have any place to live baby, okay. And they take her in, they love her overly send her out the medical records show absolutely no referral for any kind of care. She's back out on the streets. She comes in she delivers a baby that shows a positive toxicology for pain. And but no, this is not an addicted cocaine baby. In other words, the ones that you see on TV that some of the typical signs are twitching this and screaming this baby seems normal except for the positive toxicology. The local prosecutor apparently had the idea of creating some new law and arrested her for child abuse. And for drug trafficking. He said that she delivered an illegal drug to a minor. And the theory was that the delivery occurred after the baby was born. But while the umbilical cord still attached. And this is the first case in the country, there have been a number of convictions. But all of the convictions except for this one, are of women whose lawyers advised them to plead guilty to something which is a dreadful mistake, and happened in the Pamela race. I mean, in the Jennifer Johnson case, the lawyer tried his best to put on something of a trial. But the judge really, judge wasn't going to happen. The prosecutor was very assertive. They lost on the child abuse charge because they couldn't show harm to the baby, which is one of the things you have to prove. But the judge bought the delivery drug trafficking charge and said In fact, the blood had circulating through the umbilical cord and gone to the baby and therefore she was a drug dealer. She was sentenced to 15 years probation the first year in a drug treatment program when she had already gotten into and but of course, she'd gotten into it after she was pregnant. Through her attorney. Unknown Speaker 33:01 She got into the program. Unknown Speaker 33:05 And 14 years of probation that require her not only not only does she stay off drugs, but she can't associate with anybody who either uses drug drugs or drinks alcohol. How many of you know somebody who doesn't drink? Some people but not a lot, not everybody here. She also is required to report if she ever becomes pregnant again so that they can have a court supervised pregnancy. I don't know what it's going to look at, but she's required to report her pregnancy and to have court the court is going to be involved in whatever pregnancy she has. Presumably, they would mandate whatever care she was going to get. They would watch it they would tell her what she had to do. They would be sort of the pre natal police patrol. I like to talk Unknown Speaker 34:00 about it would probably mandate family testing. Unknown Speaker 34:03 It might be worst case, this is a this is in Orlando, Florida. Unknown Speaker 34:09 Or they could recommend that she be put in jail. So she doesn't use just in case, Unknown Speaker 34:15 right as if drugs are incarceration. Well now let me talk about the grand decline case. Brenda Vaughn is a young African American woman in Washington DC, who was arrested for forgery first time offense wrote a $700. Check her she pled I think she pled guilty to it. Her profit lawyer said don't worry, they never sent anybody to prison for the first offense. And this was the prosecutor and the defense. The defense attorney agreed they went in they gave them proposal for probation and the judge said It's come to my attention that she's pregnant and she tested positive for cocaine. She's going to spend the rest of her pregnancy in jail and she did. Now this is in the DC prison system. This is a woman who you has been sentenced to a crime, a non existent crime for which there was never a trial for which you never had an opportunity to challenge anything, including the drug tests, or even whether she was pregnant or not. And she spent the duration of a pregnancy in jail. There may have been a way of challenging requirements she or interested in Wyoming. You know, one of the things that we talked about the Pamela Ray Stewart cancers started at the bottom of the slippery slope. And lawyers talk about the slippery slope, if you open the door to state intrusion, are going to end up with floodgates. In other words, opening the floodgates if you can't eliminate just out the two illegal drugs, one of the things that prosecutors argue is that, look, she's doing something illegal anyway. But these cases never were limited to illegal behavior. Obviously, you can restore a case it wasn't it was all legal behaviors that she was arrested for, in addition to the illegal drugs. In Wyoming, Diane Pfannenstiel was a poor white woman was arrested for child abuse, because on the night her husband battered her, she left the house reported to the police station, went to the hospital because of she was so severely battered, and she admitted that she was both pregnant and had had some drug had been drinking. And they arrested her child. Those charges were dismissed. But again, it's not limited to illegal drugs, and in South Dakota. Welcome back. So why why is all this happening? Well, I'll give you some other overviews of all these women, they're about 3040 cases, women being arrested. 80% of the women who are being arrested are women. All of them are poor. And it's interesting that of the white women who are arrested, we know that four of them are bad. Now, I don't know whether any of the women of color are battered, I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised if any of them aren't. But it's just interesting to me that we have that information. This is a statistic that is amazingly close to something else that is related to the issue of arresting pregnant drugs, and that is forcing pregnant women to have unwanted surgery during the pregnancies. There is a simultaneously there has been a push to allow courts to allow doctors to go into court to get court orders to coerce pregnant women who are refusing blood transfusions Khazarian sections and things like that, to force those women to have those procedures that has somewhat diminished in some cases in Washington, DC. medical groups really came out against that it hasn't stopped. And there are those cases involved. For example, a Nigerian woman in Chicago who was pregnant with triplets. Sometimes, always after a cesarean section, you have to have a Syrian section again, this woman knew she was going back to Nigeria, she had reasonable belief that she would not be able to get a CFC. So she wanted to deliver vaginally. They said no, they literally strap this woman down, and other risks and an ankle cost and of course during the C section. Another case that's on that I'm working on and still in progress is the Angela Carter case, which is what I usually tell the stories I tell Campbell restored and Angela Carter's the two most nightmarish. Angela Carter at age 13 was diagnosed with cancer and was told she was going to die. And she fought that dip with definition to the age of 26. She went through multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, and ultimately the removal of an entire leg and half her pelvis. And she survived despite what everybody she'd be kicked out married and became pregnant, wanting pregnancy. But in her 26 week of pregnancy, they discovered a tumor in her lungs that turned out to be cancer. There's also in fact a much longer story about how she complained about much earlier they said oh, don't worry about it. You're just veggie pregnant woman you know, everybody has a little bit. Unknown Speaker 39:10 They didn't diagnose it at 26th week of pregnancy. She has this tumor she begins to deteriorate very quickly. The doctor's family and Angela herself all say, you know there's the doctor say we're not even going to talk to you about a C section because this baby is not viable. We want to keep you alive for as long as possible. Everybody agrees. The hospital administration finds out what's going on and thinks that there's an obligation to rescue who is causing the judge was hearing report in the hospital. He appoints a lawyer for the fetus who argues Angela is good as good as dead. You should try to save the baby. The judge says I'm going to try to save the baby even though I know the C section could kill and he says this even after the doctors go up and tell her find out what's going on. And she says I don't want it done. I don't want that. You will adapt the surgery to the surgery room. They do the surgery and the baby is so far viability, it dies in two hours and she dies two days later. The judges then write an opinion there was an attempt, they attempted to get an appeal by phone and was three lawyers with the telephone fighting back where there was a telephone Court upheld the order. And then they wrote an opinion saying condolences to the family. But even though even though she said even though everybody said what we did was right. And in fact, you should always balance maternal and fetal. And this kind of balance was appropriate, and said they would they do this but we got the court to look at the full court pass for the District of Columbia to vacate to take that opinion off the books. We are agree arguing the case, a year ago, September, and they're still on station. Friday, I heard that there were rumors of decisions coming down my heart is just fine. This stuff Unknown Speaker 41:03 actually means technically to vacate. Does that mean? What does that mean to us? Unknown Speaker 41:08 It can't be used, except it's really still published in the books and what kinds of hospital lawyers have read this opinion and think it's but technically it cannot be used in any kind of precedent. Well, I want to talk about a number of problems with all of this. Why is this happening? And I think half the pilot does a really good job talk. I think part a lot of it is for me, just like the abortion issue and the other issues, that most of it comes from the fact that we have such deeply entrenched sexism in society, that it really isn't that much more complicated than that in the 1800s and early 1900s. There are a bunch of Supreme Court decisions that talk about that say that it's okay for the state of Illinois to tell Myra Bradwell, she can't be a lawyer in the 1800s. Because her function is, as God says, to raise children and to be a mother. Now they don't use the words, rights. They don't talk about somebody else have rights, but they talk about her primary obligation to family and things. Similarly, in the early 1900s. The Supreme Court says it's okay to have protective labor legislation for women in the workplace with that command, thereby ending up creating a whole pattern of discrimination. Because women are the bearers of future race, and we're interested in having protecting motherhood and ensuring that they were responsible. There is again or not talking about fetal rights, but they're talking about tonight, protecting fetuses protecting the future by firing women from their jobs by denying them their discretion to decide what they're going to do. There are other reasons for all of this, it's a lot easier. We've known that in the United States, we are the worst, the highest infant mortality rate in 18 industrialized countries, we've known that for years, we know that before the cocaine epidemic, it's been here we have traveled around Vegas being born unnecessarily ill or dying. We've known it for a long time. It's a lot easier to blame women than it is to take responsibility for actually I want to I have fantasies of being a stand up comic and see why MC in a minute. But you know, I always do my one of my one liners that I thought somebody could do something with is, you know, what's, what's they've discovered a bigger flop in the San Andreas fault. It's my mother's fault. Because I'm very busy. What do we do when something goes when you blame Mom, it's sort of this wonderful American as apple pie thing to do. Cap capita Paula talks about the assault on for the new temperance. One of the other things that's happening is we are we've made the drug epidemic, the new enemy, a new place to put our hate and our anger and rage, rage and our money. And this arresting pregnant women not only acts out all of the sort of subtext around how we think about women and family responsibilities, but it gives prosecutors the opportunity to do two things at once. look as though they're saving lives and look as though they're doing something about the drug problem. Before Panama there were one woman had a great life that they can't get married. And so they're getting Jennifer Johnson. It does nothing for either of those problems. But it gives us a really quick, quick fix for the prosecutor. Kathy also talks about science and what the media is doing and the privilege status of the fetus and what we're doing around imposing on women and only women, the duty of care of the people. In other words, we're at the verge of creating some standard for how pregnant women are supposed to behave and acting as though You can create a perfect fetal environment, which can. The duty of care is a frightening concept. Just, you know, for some of you, some of you may be able to share some experiences and see my mom smoked when she was pregnant. Many women will put a one point on amphetamines during pregnancy because doctors can leave that support down. Many women drank during their pregnancy and still do. In European countries, there's constant drinking without the kind of evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome. As you can see here. There are women who Unknown Speaker 45:39 I work with the babies. You said before the name was Eddie, excuse me, you said before the court case in California, where they arrested the woman, and they will stick to the backwards. If the woman has been using mine, even once a month or so babies, I work with them when they come up. They may not shake but effect on them. And in few months, as babies, I have one problem. The kids pretend they end up in the hospital. Unknown Speaker 46:21 That's true for some of these babies. And they're also part of it will come up right. And the other problem is, and I don't mean to minimize any of the harms that happened. I just want people to see where what the problems are in terms of their responses to it. There are also other two problems. One is that sometimes the signs don't show up until like issues of when kids start to be socialized when people begin to see some of the psychological, physical and neurological problems, but also so many of these women and maybe you know more about this when my reading says that so many of these women are doing so many different things, that it's hard to figure out what's causing this damage. Is it specifically the cocaine? Isn't the lack of prenatal care? Is it the alcohol? Is it the lack of adequate nutrition that there are confounding factors in addition to Unknown Speaker 47:16 just inflammation? Also any pocket because they do my mother cat miscarry Unknown Speaker 47:29 choose to Unknown Speaker 47:34 have to have a court as well. And there I think I read an estimate at one point that there are 900,000 stillbirths, miscarriages each year. And when you see this kind of a lot of these kinds of things happening, you're talking about subjecting 900,000 women to evaluation every year about what they did or didn't do. Some of the other things that are unhealthy during pregnancy are changing your cat litter and as potential disposing in attacks of flying, there was an article in The New York Times saying that fly exposes you to high levels of radiation. And that it one doctor advised not fly particularly during the point during pregnancy. This might be most vulnerable. I love to watch Unknown Speaker 48:19 Water, water. So you have a duty of care that is so extensive and so frightening. obese women, with women with cancer women with epilepsy who need to take drugs, all those women are violating this what is being developed as this duty of care. Right. Did you see yes. A bit more than one and a half? Unknown Speaker 48:51 That she does, she does. Unknown Speaker 48:56 It's a wonderful place to end movie in terms of, you know, what our reproductive choices and have happened, who's responsible and how many otherwise, besides the unborn life and a woman's life were affected, that you know, all this talk about human rights in life, make you want to all of the other one that's affected by Peters decisions because living with an alcoholic living with a cocaine addict is has a tremendous effect on actual people's lives in a variety of ways. Unknown Speaker 49:27 Beyond the situation with illegal Unknown Speaker 49:29 drugs, or illegal drugs are things that people take by choice. Doctors perpetrated on us and terrible disasters. I mean, I'm a DTS child and I'm sure in this room, there's got to be at least one or two. So we're Legion Unknown Speaker 49:43 right? That's right. And one of the things one that you know these, one of the retorts in this debate is, well, you know, what if what if there was care available and the woman didn't get a candidate court require her to get that care? And it makes me very nervous because of the DVD So, do you want the state taking away your right to give informed consent? Drug Treatment is very experiment? Do you want to tell even somebody that you're very unsympathetic that she has to take this new drug that looks as though it's not going to harm anybody. In fact, we find out in 1020 30 years, that was the other thing. The other thing that's not really a separately identified Catholic Kappas are is the fact that 80% of these women are women. And that what this is about, it's also about racism. Not only are 80% of those who arrested women of color, but there's studies that are showing that where you look at drug use, for example, Pinellas County, Florida, and they did a study found that the drug use by white women and women of color was the same effect, white women used a little bit more. But then whack women were reported 10 times more often to the health department for positive toxicologist. And so you have that factor. So part of what's wrong with all this, sort of the framework that I use an argument is what I like to talk about these not as illegal drug use cases are illegal making it illegal to use drugs while you're pregnant. But what in fact, these laws are doing with these prosecution, sometimes there are laws that people are trying to put in place. What they're doing is making it a crime for an addicted woman, pregnant woman with an addiction problem, to become a state, you're making a crime for become a state, right? Because what's really going on is that if you're using drugs on Monday, you're a drug addict, you're guilty of possessing or abusing. If on Tuesday, more than you could see, then you become a child. And if you continue that pregnancy through, you can become vulnerable to arrest or prosecution for drug trafficking, child use, whatever's have happens to be caught that and if you think I'm making this formulation up, I want you to hear what part of the decision of the judge in the Jennifer Johnson case was he said the following the fact that the defendant was addicted to cocaine at the time of these offenses is not a defense, the choice to use cocaine or not to use it is just that a choice? Once the defendant made that choice, she assumed the responsibility for the natural consequences of it. The defendant also made a choice to become pregnant, and to allow those pregnancies to come to term. Now, what is this guy saying? He's saying that her prime was continuing your choice to become pregnant? And what kind of choice is that? When you're a poor woman when you don't have access to either Medicaid, contraceptives or abortions in the state of Florida, and to continue those pregnancies until the turn. He not only said that, but the prosecutor in explaining the crime use and she used these drugs. She knew that they were illegal when she got pregnant and got worse, because that's worse this is when she delivered that baby she broke the law in the state. Now, I've already heard I've heard in Maryland of a woman who mysteriously miscarried two days before she was being called before a judge in a child neglect case for her other children. The judge threatened to lock her up for the duration of her pregnancy because he thought she was using drugs, she miscarried. I think we're going to see more about that. The reason is also is that what they say is, oh, we're not making pregnancy or crime, we're making drug addiction and crime. And she could just stop using drugs. For those of you who don't know, there are virtually no drug abuse treatment programs in this country that accept pregnant most of the turn them away. Those are many of the programs that they do take women and I'm interested in some points you're making are not inpatient. They're not for women, no later. Unknown Speaker 53:57 We've got a pamphlet called street sheet lists soup kitchens for homeless people in the course of putting it together. We kept stumbling across the sort of community based detox and rehab programs. And people kept on saying, well, there are none, but we kept on finding. So finally, I put together this pamphlet, it's called Getting off drugs. And it lists 37 places in Manhattan where homeless addicts can walk in to get off drugs, because we deal with only with homeless people, and up to 3720 take pregnant women. Now all of these places are for homeless people. That means that they have to either be free or Medicaid eligible. The glitch is not that there aren't there. A lot of people really believe and I have to tell you that we worked our butts off to find all these places, really literally walking the streets, the glitches, Medicaid eligible is the law. They must help you get Medicaid and they won't. They just won't Unknown Speaker 54:59 decide to catch up Use for certain kinds of Unknown Speaker 55:01 that eliminates the other thing is that they'll take, they'll take you. They'll take you. And you have to stay on rocks, they It's called being a post addicted mother, something I learned about in the course of doing this, they'll take you in, and they'll keep you on drugs until you deliver. That means that when you deliver, you and the baby are both addicted. And then they detox both of you. And this is how they keep themselves in the least amount of I guess liability. Legally, places, for the places are specifically for addicted, addicted mothers. Unknown Speaker 55:39 Do they wait, what drugs? Are they keeping these? Well, if they're if they're, Unknown Speaker 55:47 if they're on crack, they don't take The Mentalist edge, to tell them to come all the time. They help them to help them prepare for the delivery if they didn't deliver the baby in the hospital. And so the assumption is the unspoken assumption is Polish is going to keep on taking. And if Unknown Speaker 56:06 she's on Unknown Speaker 56:09 a, something like let's say heroin, which is not really bad. Show me which is very, very difficult to get off of. It's actually easier to get off. Unknown Speaker 56:22 In talking with you're demonstrating that let me tell you what survey which may have missed some of these programs. But Dr. Winnie champion did a survey in New York of drug abuse treatment programs and found of the approximately 75 That she looked at. So he looked at 54% said flat out we don't take any pregnant women 64% said we don't take Medicaid women. And 89% said we don't take any we don't take a crack addicted Medicaid. So the end that's pretty typical across the country. And the programs you're describing, have built in some of the Unknown Speaker 56:57 Yeah, well, we, I have a chance to editorialize. Even though this is supposed to be very factual my editorializing is every time they wouldn't take a pregnant woman I put do not take pregnant addicts. But you drew it not only saying that they do take but you see all the ones that don't, which is to talk. And this is another reason is we're not set up north General Hospital. Unknown Speaker 57:21 There's a lot there. Unknown Speaker 57:22 Do you know about the lawsuit? Yes, I do. And also medical arts facility here was a lawsuit for taking Medicaid eligible so they lost, establish the grounds for places that take Medicaid, you have to help you get there. So medical Lordstown has a temporary facility that has so little treatment that we couldn't listen? Unknown Speaker 57:49 Well, I don't know if you know about this case, we can show the Women's Rights Project has brought a lawsuit against a number of training programs for not taking pregnant women. And you know, a lot of the stuff the liability concerns are basically. And what this lawsuit was trying to show is, if you're worried about liability, you better be worried for both sides. What they claim is, is that we're worried that we might hurt the fetus and get sued. Which is absurd. Because by not treating the woman with the addiction problem, they're hurting the fetus, which brings me to employ. And that is, we are incredibly able to blame and conceptualize her as the feel of user. But somehow we don't say the same thing about the director of the Drug Abuse Treatment Program and turns her away. How can that person's user? How come the legislator who doesn't vote for Appropriations is not a field user? Why is it so easy to see the woman that way? And to see everything she does? Every everybody else is innocent, but as guilty? In addition to treatment not being available? And what you're talking about? There are other problems? Is it residential? What kind of treatment? Is it? Do they have childcare, which is the biggest problem for women getting access to care? And, you know, is it is it COVID, there are a lot of issues around what actually works for them to know what works for women, because so few programs have been set up looking at. And looking at them. There's also very relatively low access to prenatal health care in general. And there are some studies that say that even if you're a person suffering from drug addiction or diabetes, that you're if you get prenatal health care and are not treated for the diabetes and generally, drug addiction net, we're still getting better off and your baby is better off than the woman who's otherwise only gets a prenatal talk cares. And there's little access around the country to abortion and contraceptive services. And as you're hearing, it's getting real, real danger of losing the threads women in Guam and Guam, which is an American territory, territory that passed a law making in the first week that that law was in Actors effect per week, not only did they stop doing abortions and stop making referrals, or arrest my boss for telling women where they could go to get more shins. But they also stopped inserting IUDs and stop doing some pieces, because of the connection to being afraid of it looking like immersion. And interestingly, among the letters that Nero has collected over the years, five women describing why they have chosen freely chosen emotion, the other side of this coercive thing about it will continue in pregnancy is that some women want an abortion because they recognize they're suffering from alcohol addiction, or some other addiction, and they want to have an abortion so that they can wait until they're healthy to continue having a healthy pregnancy. Those women are in jeopardy as well. Unknown Speaker 1:00:51 I don't want to give you an archetype, but it's on my mind, what they say, as a lawyer that we had a case law saying that they had to say we have at least three kids, and she ate. And when you talk with them, they said the return on having kids and saving money. So because of their car, and it should get out of hand. And they don't know we tool when they split slack. And they are why they are having kids when they find out they're pregnant. So hop, where you put this right of the mother and child and if they're sent to the judge was kind of taken they have to get Unknown Speaker 1:01:46 I mean, I didn't quite get your Unknown Speaker 1:01:48 your accents say that the woman edited to the crap. And they don't have money. They sleep wherever they find. And they get money for that, and they get pregnant. And this babies when Unknown Speaker 1:02:09 I think what the answer was right. Unknown Speaker 1:02:15 I'm just just queued up my mind. Unknown Speaker 1:02:19 I think part of the part of the reason where the mess we're in is not only because we're dealing with the sexism, those things which I've talked about. But I mean, my answer to you is you there's a real problem there is that you have a woman, there's a there are lots of women who behave in ways that I don't want, and I think are unhealthy. And I think we do have ethical obligations to other people and other people we hope to bring into the world. I don't have any disagreement with that. But what you're describing my answers, what you're describing is a public health problem, not a criminal justice, that you have to address what's going on? What else is going on in that woman's life? She's got a crack addiction problem, can she get any care? What kind of what did her education look like? What did her home life look like? Why did she start using crack? I mean, reading studies that say 80 to 90% of these women are incest and rape survivors. So why why are they starting to use these drugs? Or is there homelessness? So to turn around and say it's going to do something to throw women into jail? Because where there's no treatment where there are drugs, where it's all it's, you know, that doesn't make any sense on any level. But that's not to deny this is where I think the other problem is that to watch this happen, to watch cocaine babies, or watch babies that are born with problems that might have been preventable, to watch parents, men and women behave responsibly, responsibly, is tremendously upsetting. And it's understandable that people are angry. But what's not understandable is why the anger is so easily turned into saying that the woman is selfish and that our only solution is in prison, when there are so many other alternatives, all of which you came up with talking about earlier. Do you think we've Unknown Speaker 1:04:08 collaborated just a bit by arguing for childcare and arguing for lots of agendas that we've had over the last 10 years and adopting the family argument, and especially in Congress, because that was the one that was winning, and sort of making the woman disappear? In some of these political agendas? I mean, not consciously, but I mean, I think that's been happening. I hear people like Senator Dodd saying, well, we can't arrest these women. It's not practical. But that's a tweet. It's so crazy, because he's been so progressive on other things, but we I mean, I think we may maybe make tactical mistakes, sort of accepting Family? Oh, yes, we're often the family. We're working for childcare. And that's because we care about the family. So Unknown Speaker 1:05:07 I think that's one part. I mean, I don't think I think that there, I think that's one political strategic thing that may be true. And we're looking at, there's seats back through here. I will get together people, I just want to. I mean, I think that there are a lot of different reasons in that part of the problem is that most legislators are allowed, like us, or maybe not enough like us in this room. But they're, they're just folks. They're folks like in your family. They're not smarter than upright, or they're not more compassionate. I just came back from Arizona, I was supposed to give a speech at a hospital basically on these issues. I was about to get on the plane at a conference. I was about to get on the plane to leave for Phoenix last week, and I got a call literally minutes before I got on the plane. From the hospital saying a right to life doctor thought this was going to be an abortion conference, threatened to pick it with 200 people who canceled the conference. So you know, falling on my ACLU, free speech side, I flew out to Arizona anyway to do a press conference saying this is outrageous. And you know, the cowards mission to cancel the conference and another woman named Marty Jessup and RN came in also in the California that morning. Coincidentally, the state legislature introduced a bill that would have criminalized pregnancy for addicted women. And the local affiliates said, well just go down to the statehouse and testify. So we raced out to the statehouse, and we're sitting there and it's a small committee, and you shake table and I'm like, within minutes figuring out who's on the right side and passing without culture for New York. I testified before 1045. And we did testify, and I got through doing everything I've said here five of the five minute version, because that's all we knew about. And I talked about what they don't have any treatment programs in Arizona. In fact, there's a piece of legislation they're ignoring in Arizona. And when I got through testifying, I don't know what I said, at which point in pista, the chairwoman off, but she stopped and she said, I don't know why you're talking about health. This has nothing to do with health. We're talking about protecting babies. Unknown Speaker 1:07:22 You know, these people are not these people are callous, and not I mean, these people have done absolutely no research. They have people standing up and saying things that were completely wrong about Medicaid about what happened in California, just why. And I've, I've spotted very angrily saying how can you talk about you know, how can you protect babies, if you're not getting women, we're carrying them into health care and have access. And actually that time before, but you have legislators Dodd may have been influenced by that. But I'm also a lot of these guys don't know the treatments. There's just we haven't done that. There's, it's true. It's complicated by how, you know that we I think we we make some strides around them and stuff. And it's such work. And it is so amazing that we get there that we forget how much further we have to go and then be hit in the face, just basically, not the sexy Unknown Speaker 1:08:19 one, don't we tell him all these stories, what came to my mind immediately said, the purpose of this is just to spread terror in the hands of women. You know, if it's a repressive measure, it's meant to terrify me. That's the way I feel. Unknown Speaker 1:08:45 Yeah, I was thinking about how you opened up the workshop asking the question, how do we get the healthiest women or the healthiest babies? What would we need to do to do that? And, you know, we get so far as to say, well, we don't want to do is to criminalize behavior. We don't want to be forced. We don't want to throw in there. So we all probably got that far together. But as a student recently, I've been learning more about the early eugenics movement, and precisely what range of people were very committed to the notion of creating a healthy, superior, more advanced set of babies and people and among them were, as I'm sure many folks here, they know, were a good deal of feminists and socialists and they really had this vision that saw people taking a new responsibility for creating a more preferable Unknown Speaker 1:09:50 and I Unknown Speaker 1:09:51 feel a concern. I'm very concerned that as the women's movement when we Again, to use the rhetoric of what we want is public health. For all, we want health care, and we want education, so that women can decide themselves on to have unhealthy babies, that we are nevertheless falling into a concept of purity ourselves that fails to appreciate the fact that we're all in this together, and that we aren't going to get a cure. Now, I'm not saying we don't have to work collectively toward a kind of Walker, the arrangement that I understand what you're saying Rob segments to individualize that, we might shift from criminalizing to behavior to convincing, educated women to make decisions themselves so that they won't have a healthy baby. But what we really need to be doing is talking about collective responsibility for being in this together in this all together at all times. And not to create a hierarchy whereby some of us sit up here and say, You better stop behaving that way, and behave the way I told you to do our solution. And I'm not saying that I belittle either the power of residential here, but I guess I think it's we still think about addiction, and recovery, as a matter of individual responsibility as opposed to collective. Unknown Speaker 1:11:43 It's interesting, I heard different things. I've heard people trying to take responsibility in terms of coming up with strategies and programs for which we're all which ought to be coming out of our pocketbooks are coming out of our work lives or someplace. And so I heard different things. Unknown Speaker 1:11:59 I guess, I'm sorry, I was just when you're talking about programs, I think I'm just saying that we tend to think of health as something that happens in individual bodies when you are healthy or unhealthy. Unknown Speaker 1:12:18 This, this brings up, John personally. Unknown Speaker 1:12:24 And I don't have an answer, because I personally know female addicts, who they're no longer addicted ex addicts with babies were predatory. Who got arrested for dealing prostitution in one case, and there and they were given, so they had quote, man, rehab, and extended going to jail. They were given. They were offered. And all three of these women have said exactly the same. You In retrospect, I'm glad that I went into the program. And I am glad that I can see my baby, you know, he's three months old, he still shows up sometimes, and it breaks my heart. And they all have these stories about how heartbroken they were with the state of being of their babies, and how and how they were trying and they were not. They were not educated women, and they were trying to get their GED days. And it was a whole struggle. And they just said, you know, in retrospect, it's live. But all three of you said, I would never have done this. I would not have made the choice. I didn't care about my baby. When I was on crack. I only wanted crap. Did I know I was hurting the baby. Well, I knew that the drugs were bad. Yeah, I knew it was bad, but I only wanted crack. And that is a terrible problem for me in dealing with this. And we struggled with trying to this places and in the hopes that it will make more places open and de sac, the department state department of Drug Abuse Services is opening more community, things like that. And to emphasize the places don't take this in the hopes that some will is one thing but it doesn't answer the problem of the woman who just says I want that what do you do? Unknown Speaker 1:14:22 Yeah, I will wait. This is terrible. We have ladies that it is a political suicide society has a warning system and this is a crop have been used as expressed minorities. And then we have we had a case be they say when people get sick and two years old with three kids and pregnant five muscle and she lives in a hotel and three, two kids and pregnant and the boyfriend and And since all her folly, and the pushes or the suck, appears, and the razor bleeding, she ends up in the emergency room comes back and the medicine to get out of screaming yelling finally when what she came to us, and what can we do outpatient clinic, she had to go to the stupid Hotel. So here's this phone, even if you take this woman to the treatment, they're so scared. There's so untrust you helping to these people. I mean, everything has to be changed. Like we are 14 years old woman covered as like two years old, you have to build everything from the zeros is a hard job. And everything in their life is negative. Even if they you give them something positive, they can't handle it. They use the treatment, get the babies back, get the house and get out there. They don't trust us. And the other thing is that minorities in the Chinese are retiring, whatever is it? facially unfortunately, the black Americans, we need more black workers, wherever they can trust, they don't trust us. I'm not gonna I'm quoting Gloria. You are middle class, because they can't we have parenting, we have this we have that. What happens is, we don't raise our children like you like middle class whites, but they can't because of their period and horrifying stories of life and generation of addiction. You're not just putting the person to the teachers. In a year, they will be over in touch. Unknown Speaker 1:17:11 I don't understand a lot of this going on. You were talking about all these different cases? how smart she was pregnant, she went to jail. And like you saying that that is in essence against the law. So how are they? Unknown Speaker 1:17:30 I know, my students keep asking. Unknown Speaker 1:17:35 Can she appeals and Unknown Speaker 1:17:40 there's an answer. I know no matter how, and I'm going to answer your question, no matter how simply they do know this. Assuming they know the system, I mean, any right even the clearest right it says you have the right to free speech that doesn't keep your town like saying no, you can't put a political poster in your front yard because it ruins the neighborhood. And then you have to call the ACLU and ACLU has to go to court. And we have to say you can't do this. Having rights. Basically all it means is the right to fight for your rights people are constantly trying to violate. So of course, go ahead and they do this. And there may well have been things we could have done. I think my guess is that her lawyer was not experienced, perhaps not competent. A lot of these women are advised to plead guilty to non existent crimes. It's horrifying. But it's because instead of going to the stupid legislator, they've gotten stuck with a stupid lawyer, it happens all the time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't. What it means is that we have to be better at intervening and fighting and doing alternative things outside of the court. We couldn't get random one out of jail, but I don't know if anybody ever got it together do pickets at the judge's house to pick it outside of the jail to make a steak loud enough so that the stuff stops happening. So the answer is a lot of unjust things do happen, although, you know, what we have are really good arguments if we have the right lawyer at the right time, the right place. Also. Unknown Speaker 1:19:15 It's interesting that you know, Alcoholics Anonymous and you know, na all these other things. So like in the spotlight now, like we because like all these famous people like Darryl Strawberry, this and that are, are have this problem. And it's like, it's okay for them to be for them to say that, well, this person is addicted to drugs, but when it comes to a woman, that she's not addicted, I mean, like, what's the problem here? I mean, it's like, obviously, it is an addiction. You know, it's not like she's doing it for free. Well, it is definitely an addiction and they know this. So why are they doing this? You know, it's it's, it's just Unknown Speaker 1:19:59 exactly what racehorse Unknown Speaker 1:20:02 it's actually an addition it's not looked at as a primate should be looked at as Unknown Speaker 1:20:10 well, I mean, we could have a whole other discussion on here, chicken crack, Unknown Speaker 1:20:14 you're not a murderer, or something like that you Unknown Speaker 1:20:17 have killed someone that says as Unknown Speaker 1:20:19 they say that it's a disease that the person is not responsible that they're accountable, but they're not responsible for what they did. Because they don't realize what they do. That's that was Unknown Speaker 1:20:32 accepted political alcoholism. Unknown Speaker 1:20:39 Fact in general, because most physicians are not trying to spot Unknown Speaker 1:20:45 any family or jurisdiction or anything, like people that Unknown Speaker 1:20:48 are trapped with drugs, or certainly, Unknown Speaker 1:20:52 oh, yeah, they're not gonna say it'd be like Ali bored. Unknown Speaker 1:20:59 They're not gonna say, Well, you have an additional future. If you're coming in drugs. You know, like you're actually trafficking. It's one of the Unknown Speaker 1:21:16 things, they've never arrested them on possession or illegal use. I love it. Well, what I love about these cases is I have to reply to them ever now, still briefing on appeal the Johnson case. And the the lawyer there says in the brief, well, you know, she was doing something illegal, and therefore she had to know the consequences, meaning she was using illegal drugs, she was doing something illegal. She had to be responsible for the other consequences of that the effect of the baby. But I'm like, Excuse me, did you have a trial and a conviction to prove that she did this illegal thing that you're arresting your whole case? I mean, you're exactly right. They never have to prove their case. They never, you know, she, some of these women confess, that was the jury. And this was a non jury trial in the Florida case, because the lawyer thought that a jury would not be sympathetic enough, he thought he had a better chance with the judge in stature. Can I just I want to stop for a second and respond to some of the things you say, because I think they really open up a whole other important area, you started by saying there are women who have been forced by court orders to get treatment. And that they felt that in retrospect, that was a good thing for them, I have a couple of responses to it. First of all, is a an overall matter. Every time a pregnant woman is arrested in a particular place where every time a law is about to go into effect, where they're discussing criminalizing, women stop calling in for the for drug abuse treatment. So at least talking about a population of women who would have sought treatment, but they're not so far out, as you're talking about, there are lots of women desperately trying to get over these treatment, those women stop calling. And we've seen that in Florida, San Diego, and a group is finally going to study in Minnesota, which has a new mandatory reporting law. Every time it happens with the stock coming in not only for drug abuse treatment, such as it exists, but also. So it acts as a phenomenal deterrence, in addition to all of the sort of the social and cultural barriers that you're sort of describing. So you've got this terrible problem. I have heard what you said before, and I have a couple of responses. One level for those women who want to get one of the problems about your treatment is that I've heard is that if you call on the phone, if you're at that moment, wherever you are in the cycle of addiction, where you call up for help, and they say, six month waiting list, or can you call back tomorrow? Well, you don't hang up the phone. And when you hang up the phone, you go out and so the problem there too, is I don't know about these women did those women ever make an attempt and not be able to get in the door in the first minute, I want to know I'd be interested in knowing that. Unknown Speaker 1:24:04 And these, this, these three women, and that's what these are the only three I happen to know by the way. They didn't make an attempt. Then they made it very clear. They felt good thing. Unknown Speaker 1:24:18 But there are a lot of women and there are I'm just saying that yes, there are a lot of right. Okay, so you have those women who want help who can't get it when they call they put down the phone, they get more. So you have that you have the problem of more women being frightened away by the prosecution's, but you have a reality. I've heard this from a lot of drug abuse treatment people that people have to hit bottom before they finally get help. And they have to be put in a position where there's no other alternative for them. And there's a problem with that as to I happen to be by fluke I was on one of the mayor's committee helping to select people to be interviewed in there for various positions. I was surprised at how many criminal justice folks talked about, we should get more drug abuse treatment for criminals, you know, and this notion that you should have a priority for people who were arrested to get into programs. And it's like the Jennifer Johnson case with what they're saying is, in America, in order to get into a drug abuse treatment program, you have to be convicted and named a criminal. And you know, the ideas Unknown Speaker 1:25:23 that just remind you, as a public defender, Unknown Speaker 1:25:26 I represented a lot of clients who do just that, they went out and got arrested. So they didn't get directory there that I mean, they simply told me, they went out there, they knew the cops were sitting there, surveilling this area, they went out there right in front of the cops and bought some crack or sold some crack so that they could go to jail. It gets drugs, there was a about town column in New York, where a year ago, a guy went to a police station and broke the windows through a restaurant drug abuse treatment. So yeah, my idea is like, why not open during these centers and say those who are criminals get priority? So but then you're still stuck with how do you get people to hit bottom? me what I want? What I want us to be talking about is, how do you get to that credit app? How do you get there employers, their families, all of the non legal institutions, to create that to help take some social and family responsibility, so you get them to hit? So you know, families do things? I don't know, if it was, in fact that I'm saying at least let's look at some alternatives to how do you get people to get bought that aren't your order? Unknown Speaker 1:26:38 That's a very difficult thing. And I personally know three women who have not gotten to that. And, and I've personally offered to do anything, you know, to use the name of our agency to get them into a better, Unknown Speaker 1:26:51 which is, and Unknown Speaker 1:26:52 then it's, it's, it's just, it's like, this long talk, you know, and, look, I'll call it for you, you know, I'll do everything and then responses do you have? The thing is, Unknown Speaker 1:27:07 I think there's this very delicate balance with addictions between the individual and the social, because in my own experience with the different people without cause, unless they have reached the point that they want to stop themselves, all the programs Unknown Speaker 1:27:24 have any effect. And that's very Unknown Speaker 1:27:27 frustrating when women are pregnant. If the women are not pregnant, somehow, it doesn't, or it didn't affect me personally, as badly as other three that I'm talking about. What another good, one of them is pregnant, and she's in her late 30s. She's She's become pregnant through her prostitution, which she by which supports her habit. And, and she's the one that she's the only one person in her life to do I've ever had. I've had a violent response, which I did not act on. I mean, I didn't act on it, but I had it in my heart, I wanted to smack. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I would have done, I would have just personally knocked a lot more. Because she was taking crack. And she's she's, she's a neighborhood. She's on the streets in my neighborhood. She's on my blog all the time. And I see her. And I know exactly what I did author, you know, sort of all kinds of things, which is, which the only person to have to say, I felt, Unknown Speaker 1:28:34 and we need to hear this, we really need to hear this because there are an awful lot of people who are working with these women and babies who are angry and frustrated by what they're seeing, and we need to hear. And we need to give people a place to talk about it. So it comes out here and it comes out around how you're feeling and not comes out in the legislature and it doesn't come out somehow has to reach them. It has to it has to trigger the legislators on that level. So that they don't stop I mean, they don't pretend that it's not Unknown Speaker 1:29:11 I want you do I went and I did I went back into my apartment and I said to my friend Unknown Speaker 1:29:18 do you think we can make assistance arrest? Unknown Speaker 1:29:20 I was so angry. And she was she was on the side and she just wanted money. Well what always wants money for Unknown Speaker 1:29:33 and when Britain what what I think we have to do is not only have a place so that we can talk about it, you get a chance. But we have to talk about what it feels like to sometimes not be able to stop something that we see that's really bad because we Unknown Speaker 1:29:47 can Yeah, it is because it's very it is very horrible. To be able to start something that I personally think is very horrible in terms of Unknown Speaker 1:29:59 but that So I mean, you're you're coming up with feelings that I think are pretty typical around this stuff. And one of the things that I might, that, that I feel in my heart is, I keep hearing that from you, but from the people I argue against. They're saying, you know, these women are responsible for their babies, these women don't care. They're selfish. They don't care about anybody. And I see these women, as women who first and foremost, don't care for themselves are not selfish enough. And the stuff I've been reading, they talk about how they consistently put aside their own treatment to go bail out their boyfriend, who just got arrested for using drugs, how coed programs don't work, because women typically put aside their own health to take care of men around that. Why is it that we don't get that these women don't care about themselves, and we only get angry, not you. But we only get really angry when we see them not caring about their babies are their families. And there's something that's like, so scary to me about that, because these women really do hate themselves. And they they have all those other things that you're talking about, they have all of those things that were just like not giving them a place to deal with. Unknown Speaker 1:31:11 I have no one last weekend, she has, she's pregnant with pregnancy. For Kids, four kids, and six years old was acting up at school, and after our education, to learn about that, he said, Maybe I was making all my money. And because of that, to continue everything. And this is the other thing, I like to make the point that they're all but now the money infrastructure business, everybody opens a center. And because there's no research specially with very few, everything is experimental. And we try everything with our places. We kept the things small like a family. Somehow it's work. And what the we hear a lot of the coil with this. Man, I don't think people were paid to fake. This fake keeps them even go to AAA and Amy, Unknown Speaker 1:32:27 Quebec, I would like to back you up by reading. For about a probe. There are a couple of programs around the country and your if you want to wear to me they sound like they're building on the models of the battered women's shelter. They're women focused. They're, they're small, they're intensive. And this is this is without one and guess Maryland. She was 19 addicted to cocaine, among other things. And this was her first time in a drug treatment center. So when the council asked and Jarvis to stand and tell the other residents what feelings she had been trying to bury with chemicals, she wanted to be good and a bit of smoke his order. So when she looked out at the group of 17 men and two women, her mouth turned to Sam. Somehow Jarvis didn't think they would understand. Finally at the counselors prodding the gaithersburg native began miserably recounting how getting how hi how chase away the shame from a childhood full of sexual abuse. And her later involvement in prostitution on the streets, Washington. It was she said it was humiliating to have to say that men and they treated me differently. Afterwards, syndrome is now 22 and a drug counselor at a halfway house exclusively for women. It was like they ripped my guts out, threw me on the floor and said you're healed. So I've read this. And again, she's now they talked about why so much of the history of abuse and violence in these women's lives. They go on to say that most of these women have never been a place in their lives where they couldn't get hit. And it also makes me think about some of the work that the National Black Women's Health Project. It's specifically a woman named Lily Allen, who's former chair on Institute of the Lily Allen Institute in Atlanta, because they've built a model of self help groups giving women a place to talk about what's happened in their lives as a way not only to break down barriers when it's for one group of women, but across cultures and across races. Because what I see in those groups when I see the black and South project model when I see Lilianne working, it's amazing to see how the drag heard these stories spoken about women, it's drugs because we have no place to talk about that Unknown Speaker 1:34:41 stuff. It's just going to suggest that beyond that what you describe I would add a description of power, taking power.