Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Missing the debate

I know what I used to love about school...all levels of school...there was challenge, and the opportunity to share, speak, write or draw without too big a fear of lasting judgment. The best unknown when you are young is that this process is occurring. THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF GETTING OLD and looking back: reviewing one's actions, pleasures, successes and failures.

I got triggered by something I read today -- starting with the Letters to the Editor, and then back to the original Opinion piece -- an article in the paper I work for about a Hanford, CA woman, allegedly a habitual meth user, being charged with murder by the D.A. due to the stillbirth of her latest child, a son. It didn't happen until I began writing a compassionate response that I even knew myself, my past self that was fiery and opinionated in college, one that was informed by many courses and discussions in Women's Studies.

This is the article
:https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-17/baby-born-dead-meth-make-a-murderer}

And this is my comment left in support of and after the hardened, negative responses to the Editorial Board's view.

Now there are additional published responses rejecting the Editorial Board's opinion here, on top of the comments listed. I read the Board's main point as the slippery slope of interpreting the law to the detriment of women, when that was not why "fetus" was added to the law.

No one has addressed the general disregard of her healthcare providers (did she have any?), nor the full disregard of Ms. Becker's sexual partner(s). This charge of murder seems like a call for a stoning. Does no one see that skew and the injustice? The 21st Century is much darker than has been imagined -- particularly for women. I cannot fathom how anyone of either sex could leap to the charge of murder without deep questioning and clear-eyed viewing of this punitive bias She is so very young, and seemingly not in a location nor circumstance that empowers her whatsoever. May she have many step to her defense.