Vvixen

Stacey Campfield's Madonna-Whore Complex is Showing Again!

2011-09-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sen. Stacey Campfield, that perennial source of humor, consternation and embarrassment for all people who follow Tennessee politics is once again showing what he really thinks of women: we are all either virginal paragons of virtue or we're worthless whores.

The first time he expounded on this misogynistic theme, it had to do with funding for Planned Parenthood. In this news article, Campfield compared cutting political deals in an attempt to "defund" Planned Parenthood to being forced to kiss ugly girls at the prom. Because, you know, the ugly girls are undesirable and therefore completely useless to Stacey Campfield and every other self-respecting man. Aunt B wrote a very insightful and scathing blog post about this at the time. Quoting her: "Campfield equates a situation where he can’t control women’s healthcare with being forced to kiss ugly girls and a situation in which he can actively harm women by denying them healthcare as being able to take a pretty girl home"...to have sex with. (Aunt B didn't say that last part, but, come on, I think it's understood, right? I mean, that's why a man would take a girl home, right? Not for stimulating intellectual conversation.)

So, Campfield's latest misogynistic metaphor is about going to the whorehouse looking for a virgin.
That's literally what he titled his blog post. I was a little disappointed to find that this post was really about a Democratic jobs tour. See, Democrats don't know anything about creating private sector jobs, right? (Irony, see?) So, Campfield sees fit to make fun of Democrats for trying to do something about the jobs crisis in Tennessee--which is more than the Republicans have done even though they control both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor's office.

It is so odd and telling that Campfield would bring up this Madonna-whore imagery in reference to something as mundane and non-controversial as jobs. But maybe it's not such a stretch. After all, if things get much worse out there in the labor market, a whole lot of nice Tennessee women may have to contemplate taking up the world's oldest profession.

The Price of "Purity"

2011-05-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

Something has come to my attention that I find so creepy and disturbing that I feel I have to write about it. The Rangeline Neighborhood Community Development Corporation is holding a "Purity Ball" on June 25th. Here's the webpage: http://www.rangelinencdc.com/pages.asp?pageid=106170

Here's the mission: "To instill the principles in our teenage daughters on how important it is to protect their heart and body until she commits to a man on her wedding day. On this day, Fathers make a vow and promise to protect their daughters and guard their virginity. As the fathers are making these vows and promises, they present a purity ring (or other item) to their daughters. These daughters are then under their fathers guard and protection until they are married and replace their purity ring with a wedding ring. The daughters promise their fathers that they will stay pure until a man replaces the purity ring with a wedding wing. This ceremony will be symbolic of an actual wedding."

Okay, in addition to the grammatical errors in this statement (and there are many), this is just beyond creepy. I don't have a daughter, but I am a daughter and I know that parents have a hard time thinking of their children as sexual beings. Many struggle with the knowledge that their little darling is going to have sex someday. But this is the wrong way to go. Fathers who take seriously the exhortation to "protect their daughters and guard their virginity," are going to find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation. With the average age of first marriage now in the mid to late 20's, that's a long time for fathers to be "guarding" their daughters' virginity. How exactly is a Dad supposed to determine whether his daughter is still a virgin? Fathers often have a hard time talking about sex with daughters anyway. Many fathers describe the discomfort they feel when their daughters begin to develop sexually. Some even worry they will become sexually attracted to their daughters. For this and other reasons, most fathers leave "the talk" with their daughters to the mothers. If fathers are reluctant to discuss menstruation and the birds and bees with their daughters, how are they ever going to discuss their daughters' first sexual experiences? And wouldn't participating in a simulated wedding with his daughter feel really creepy to most men?

Someday many of these daughters will forget all about this "Purity Ball," or it will seem an unrealistic goal. Making young people take oaths of virginity at an early age is doomed to turn many of them into hypocrites or saddle them with a lifetime of shame and guilt if they don't live up to the expectation of "purity." And let's make it clear--95% of Americans have premarital sex. And purity pledges as a form of birth control are spectacularly ineffective. A recent study of teens who made a public pledge to abstain until marriage questioned the youth again six years after they made the pledge. Researchers found that over 60 percent had broken their vow to remain abstinent until marriage. The study also found that teens who took virginity pledges begin engaging in vaginal intercourse later than non-pledging teens, but that pledgers were more likely to engage in oral or anal sex than non-pledging virgin teens and less likely to use condoms once they become sexually active. The study found that pledgers were much less likely than non-pledgers to use contraception the first time they had sex. So, if this event is aimed at stemming the high teen pregnancy rate in the Frayser area, it may have just the opposite effect.

My other problem with this shindig is the fact that it's so expensive. It's $105 for the father and first daughter and $50 for each additional daughter. That's a lot of money for a family living in Frayser, one of Memphis's poorer suburbs. And what do they get for that? A "boutique" of flowers for the daughter, a "purity" band for the daughter (no doubt made of cheap base metal), a photograph of father and daughter and a "certificate of purity" for the daughter. I think any family would do better putting that money in the bank to fund the daughter's post-secondary education.

And here's another thing: what about the many families headed by single women? Won't all this "father-daughter" stuff make girls whose fathers are not around feel different and inadequate? Yes, teens need parental support and they need to know they can say "no" to sex. But this kind of fear and guilt-based sex education that reinforces "traditional" gender roles and expectations (boys always want sex and girls need to tell them no), has not been proven to work and may be counter-productive. It's hard enough being a teenage girl without laying on all this purity and "accountability" crap on them.

Reporting from LaLa Land...

2011-04-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

If you've driven on Poplar Avenue near East Parkway any time in the past couple of months, you probably saw some people on the sidewalks holding signs. You may or may not have known why they were there. You may or may not have cared that they were there. But you should care, and I'll tell you why.

The protests are part of the biannual "40 Days for Life" protests at Planned Parenthood health centers around the country. They're schtick is "pray to end abortion." They are supposed to be praying and standing vigil. But recently they've become more aggressive--approaching and even yelling at people walking into the building. One of their leaders has posted a video blog post about it. You really should watch in order to hear what these "prayer warriors" think they are doing. The audio is crap, but that's on their end. Skip to 7:01 on the timeline to hear about the "sidewalk counseling" (harassment and trespassing) that they were doing on private property. (Which, by the way, is illegal.)

What is wrong with praying to end abortion? Like a lot of people, I fervently wish that there was no more need for abortion. I wish that women would never again get pregnant when they they don't want it or don't expect it. I wish that every pregnancy was a wanted pregnancy. I want every pregnant woman to get the best possible care during her pregnancy so that she carries to term and delivers a healthy baby. I wish every baby was born healthy and no family ever had to suffer the pain of stillbirth or infant death. If I were the praying type, I would even pray for these healthy and happy outcomes for our women and their families.

But praying outside of a woman's health center is a lot more than that. It is, in fact, an attempt to shame and intimidate women who seek care and the medical staff who serve them. It is sending the message: "You are doing something wrong and evil. You will suffer and go to Hell for it."

Jesus himself spoke out against public prayer. "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." -Matthew 6:6. He also said, "Judge not that ye be not judged." -Matthew 7:1. (I could go on and on. I went to Sunday school, too, you know!)

What would Jesus say about "40 Days for Life"? I honestly don't know. But I think he might ask these judgmental "sidewalk counselors," who drive Mercedes and pricey SUVs, when they are going to give up their worldly goods and follow him.

The State of Choice in Tennessee

2011-01-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

Today is NARAL Pro-Choice America's "Blog for Choice" Day. The question asked of bloggers this year is: Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011? Here in Tennessee, a woman's right to access safe, legal abortion faces a very serious threat: proposed legislation to change Tennessee's Constitution so that women in our state are no longer guaranteed a right to abortion. The measure is called Senate Joint Resolution 127, known as SJR127.

You can read the language of the resolution here. SJR127 is designed to circumvent a 2000 ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court that found the Tennessee constitution provides even greater protection of women’s privacy rights regarding abortion than does the U.S. Constitution. SJR127 is an extreme measure that would take away rights and freedoms that Tennessee women currently take for granted.

Worse yet, the language of the bill is deceptive. It implies that exceptions have been made for victims of rape and incest and for women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancies. However, the version of the bill passed by the General Assembly last session spells out no such exceptions. If passed again by the Tennessee House and Senate by a two-thirds majority this session, SJR127 will go on the ballot in the general election in November 2014. If it is approved by a majority of voters who cast ballots in the Governor’s race, the measure will become law, allowing the Tennessee General Assembly to enact any number of unreasonable restrictions on abortion in Tennessee or even ban it outright if the Roe v. Wade decision is ever overturned.

SJR127 does nothing to increase access to contraception, prenatal care or childcare for Tennessee women or offer them any other options to make it easier for them to prevent unwanted pregnancies or carry unplanned pregnancies to term. It would allow government intrusion in the personal health care decisions of women and their families, putting bureaucrats in charge of a crucial life decision best left to a woman and her family in accordance with her own faith and personal beliefs. Women do not make the decision to have an abortion lightly, nor do they do it for frivolous reasons. 61% of women who have abortions already have at least one child, and 75% of abortion patients cite obligations to their existing children or other family members as the reason they chose abortion.

If the goal of policy-makers is to reduce the number of abortions in Tennessee, the best way is not by over-reaching government interference, but by reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies. We must provide accurate, complete, age appropriate sexuality education in our schools that encourages responsible behavior including abstinence, but also information about contraceptives. And we must take practical steps to increase access to birth control for all girls and women of child bearing age. Making contraception available and affordable reduces the number of unintended pregnancies and allows women to plan their families, while improving their health, the health of their children and their futures.

Everyone in Tennessee have a vested interest in preserving the right to access safe and legal abortion. If you believe that all people, both men and women, should be free to make personal, private health care decisions without the unnecessary intrusion of government bureaucrats, please ask your legislators to vote against SJR127.

Why Curry Todd Stands by What He Said

2010-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of outrage in the blogosphere by what state rep Curry Todd of Collierville said in a meeting of the Fiscal Review Committee in Nashville this week, and well there should be. Todd asked a state health official whether potential patients are asked to show proof of citizenship before receiving prenatal care. The official tried to explain to Todd that they are actually prohibited from asking for proof of citizenship by federal mandates. Todd then rather huffily said, "They can go out there like rats and multiply, then." You can watch the entire exchange here:

If Todd's concern is about what health care for indigent people is costing the state, he should be much more concerned about the health of native born Americans who are covered by TennCare. Care for TennCare patients who have chronic diseases caused by "lifestyle" factors costs the state many millions every year. In contrast, immigrants are relatively young and healthy compared to native-born Americans. Most have not lived here long enough to have become sickened by our toxic lifestyle. They don't require as much medical care, so covering them is fairly inexpensive.

Pregnant women can get "presumptive eligibility" coverage under TennCare to pay for prenatal care and labor and delivery. Would Todd prefer for them to get no prenatal care and deliver at home without medical assistance? That's very short-sighted, since the resultant child will almost certainly be covered under TennCare--because he/she is automatically a US citizen. It makes much more sense to make sure that child gets a healthy start in the world by providing adequate prenatal care for the mother than to have TennCare pay for much more expensive medical care for that child later.

My point is that Todd's outrage at people who come here and "breed like rats" is not based on fiscal concerns at all, because there's plenty of evidence that providing relatively inexpensive preventive care like "presumptive eligibility" for pregnant women actually saves the state money in the long run. If Todd had not shouted down that poor lady who was trying answer his questions, she could have told him that. But really, the whole point of the exercise was for him to look tough to his teabagger constituents, many of whom really do think of immigrants as "rats." They are just as pleased by Todd's outburst as we are horrified by it. So, I guess Todd can consider this "mission accomplished." It's so sad that this is what our great immigrant nation has come to.

Because It's Not Really About Saving the Little Baby Fetuses

2010-05-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

The conservative Republicans who now control the Tennessee General Assembly like to brag about being pro-life--especially in an election year. Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey, who is running for Governor this year, is particularly emphatic about his "proven record of fighting to protect the unborn." (Lifted from Ramsey's own website: http://teamronramsey.com/issues).

Last year, Ramsey made a big show of threatening an independent government panel, the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency, for approving Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region's application to move to a medical office building in Midtown Memphis that happens to be in the general vicinity of Memphis Catholic High School. When the deal fell through for other reasons, Ramsey was quick to issue a press release taking credit for blocking the move. Ramsey was also quick to take credit for legislation last year designed to "defund" Planned Parenthood by denying it a share of Tennessee's Title X federal family planning funding--legislation that was not entirely successful because there is literally no other agency in Shelby County qualified or willing to provide the full scope of family planning and related health services required by the Title X grant program.

But now the social conservatives show their true colors. As Speak to Power points out, one of the programs Republicans have elected to cut in this tough budget year is a $4.5 million program designed to reduce infant mortality in Tennessee. We know all about infant mortality here in Memphis. Memphis has more infant deaths than any other city in the United States, with a rate of 15 deaths for every 1,000 births. It's an issue that has received extensive media attention here in Memphis and nationally. Infant mortality is both a personal tragedy for the families affected and a complicated public health issue with a myriad of contributing factors. After a flurry of embarrassing media coverage of the issue, state health officials came through with a number of programs designed to address the problem, the $4.5 million one among them, which also brought in a significant amount of federal matching funds to Tennessee.

So, if Ramsey is truly devoted to "protecting the unborn," as he says on his website, why would he not fight to keep this infant mortality reduction program instead of characterizing it as "pork"? Could it be because the bulk of the $4.5 program's efforts probably go to benefit the many poor and uninsured new and expectant mothers in Memphis and Shelby County? The disdain that religiously and politically conservative folks in Middle and East Tennessee have for Memphis and its "problems" is legendary. And you know what they're talking about when they say "problems." Yes, face it. Conservatives in the rest of Tennessee don't like it that Memphis is a majority black city that usually votes Democrats into office.

But it's more than that. Conservatives, for all their zeal for "life," don't approve of pregnancies that result from pre-marital sex. One reason they hate Planned Parenthood is that they think access to birth control makes it too easy for unmarried young people to enjoy sex, without suffering the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy. Their real goal is to force everyone to live by the same religious and moral strictures that they promote, but too often don't even live by themselves.

So, remember, when conservatives tout their pro-life family values, they're not talking about saving babies. Because if they really care about babies, why do they cut the health and social programs that benefit babies, children and families every chance they get?

Update: May 29, 2010

"Despite pleas by children's advocates and testimony that babies will die, Republicans on the state Senate Finance Committee stripped funding for an infant-death reduction initiative that officials say is reducing Memphis and Tennessee's high rates of infant mortality." From this morning's CA article. Yet more proof that conservatives only care about "unborn" babies. Once they're out of the womb, they're on their own!

What I've Learned About the Health Care System

2010-05-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided to write about a recent run-in my family had with the for-profit health care system in this country, not because I'm looking for sympathy, but because I think others can learn from our experiences. We found out that if you don't make the right decisions in one of the most stressful situations a family can face--a health crisis--your loved one could be shunted out of the hospital without getting needed care, and into "home health care," which turns out to be very little care at all.

While I was away from home on a business trip last week, my elderly mother fell in her home where she lives alone with her very obese dachshund. Paramedics rushed her to the emergency room of Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Pelham, Alabama. My sister, Betsey, who works at church day care center in nearby Chelsea, Alabama, quickly rushed to the hospital and tried to call me to let me know what had happened. After some confusion, my husband was able to reach me on my cell phone, and relay the message but it took me another agonizing hour or so before I was able to actually talk to my sister. Even so, she didn't have much to tell me. The doctors said that our mother may have broken her hip, but they wouldn't know for sure until after examining the X-rays. As most everyone knows, breaking a hip is one of the worst things that can happen to an elderly person. The injuries don't heal well and incapacitate an older person for weeks or months at a time. Many hip fracture victims never fully recover, and as a doctor told me later, mortality rates for the elderly in the year following a hip fracture are 25%.

I spent a long afternoon worrying and waiting for Betsey to call me back. When she finally did, she relayed the good news that our Mom had not broken her hip, but instead had fractured her pelvis. My sister told me the doctors said that was a much less serious injury, and that my mother was not qualified to be admitted to the hospital. Betsey told me that a social worker who called herself a "patient advocate" told her that my mother would be sent home with "home health care," and she would be just fine in 4 to 6 weeks. I found out later that she also told my sister that she couldn't be fired from her job if she took off work to take care of our mother, but that wasn't really an option for my sister, because my sister works for hourly wages and if she misses work she doesn't get paid! I didn't know what to think about all this. I considered flying directly to Birmingham, but found that changing the flight would cost hundreds of dollars. So I decided to fly back to Memphis as planned the next day and then drive to Birmingham on Friday. In the meantime, Betsey took two unpaid days to stay with our mother in her house.

When I finally got to Birmingham, I found my Mom in her reclining lift chair. She seemed fine, although she was in a lot of pain and was a little drugged up. Not long after I got there, my Mom demonstrated that she could stand up and with the help of a walker, make her slow and painful way to the bathroom. My sister had also picked up a "potty chair," which looks just like the kind used for potty-training kids, but of course, it's adult-sized. The idea was that if our Mom couldn't make it all the way to the bathroom, she could at least make her way to the chair. I thought that probably made sense...but I kept asking when these "home health care" workers would come and help out. Wouldn't someone come and help our Mom get to the toilet and bathe? Betsey told me they had come on Thursday and filled out a bunch of paperwork to get her "in the system," but they didn't actually do anything to help out.

Friday afternoon, a physical therapist associated with the home health care agency also dropped in. She was nice and talked to us while typing into a kind of PDA or smart phone, but she also said that she was just there to fill out paperwork and get our Mom "in the system." I asked her when these home health care aides would be coming in, but she said she didn't know, but that she could set up twice-weekly physical therapy sessions. I was glad to hear that because I have always thought my Mom needed physical therapy. She is 82 years old, has severe arthritis, osteoporosis and a bad back, and was having a pretty hard time getting around even before this latest incident. But she was still living on her own, still able to cook and clean for herself, and she still drove her own car to run errands...she just doesn't do any of this very fast. I thought then and still hope now that when she recovers from this fracture, she will be able to go back return to doing all her usual activities. Meanwhile, I was still wondering when the real help would arrive...Eventually I let Betsey go on to her house and got my Mom bedded down. She decided to sleep in her chair because the bed was too soft and she couldn't get comfortable. I made sure she had everything she needed, then went to bed in the guest room.

Well, things went south in a hurry the next day. The first time I went in to check my Mom, she had slid down in the chair and couldn't lift herself out of it, and frankly I couldn't lift her out of it either. Fortunately my sister had arrived and together we were finally able get her up (after almost overturning the chair)! But that first trip to the potty chair was a complete disaster. Although we can get the carpet cleaned, I began to have serious doubts that all this would work out. Once the pain medicine wore off overnight, Mom was in too much pain to move at all, let alone get up and walk to a potty chair...but after taking the hydrocodone prescribed for her, she was too woozy and unsteady to get to her feet either.

As the day wore on, it became more obvious to me that our Mom would not be able to cope on her own. I called the home health care agency to find out when and how we could get some home health care workers to come help out. The on-call nurse let me know (rather rudely, I thought), that the home health care agency didn't actually provide any care. They were merely there to help teach the family members how to take care of the sick or injured person. That got my Irish up! I said, "Well, we can't be here all the time, and I guarantee she's going to fall again if she doesn't get 24-hour care!" She told me I would have to talk to her doctor, but that it was almost impossible for someone to be placed into rehab or assisted living after they had been released from the hospital.

It was Saturday, but even so, I called the doctor's on-call number. A short while later, a Dr. Puckett called me back. He wasn't actually my Mom's doctor and had never even met her before, he was just on call for her primary care physician. I told him the situation, and I must have been pretty convincing because he agreed to make a few phone calls to try to help our mom out. About an hour and a half later, he called back and told me that the only way to get Mom in rehab was to re-admit her to the hospital through the emergency room....and the only reason she could be re-admitted was if she was suffering "intractable pain." But, he told me that we had to get her to the hospital before shift change at 5 p.m. I looked at the clock...and it was already almost 3. I quickly called Betsey and asked her to come over as soon as she could to help me get Mom into the car so we could get her back to the hospital. In the meantime, outside, the sky just opened up. A major storm front that had earlier slammed Memphis was now hitting our part of Alabama hard. While I was trying to figure out how to get her into the car without getting her soaked, a mind-numbing blaring noise started blasting throughout the house!

My mom's home alarm system had somehow been triggered by the storm. The problem was, although the house was wired for an alarm system, my mom never took out a contract on it, so there was nobody we could call to help us turn it off! And it was CRAZY loud!

When my sister arrived, we started screaming at each other. She wanted to know why I hadn't gotten Mom into the car yet! Meanwhile our mom was leaning over the walker and hobbling very slowly in our direction--painfully slowly. At that point, Betsey started yelling at her like she was a mule, "Giddyup! Hurry! Hurry!" Our mom almost started crying and said, "Betsey stop yelling at me!" Then Betsey said, "Okay, we'll just carry her!" I said, "NO!" Since it took 3 paramedics to pick her up after she fell the first time, I knew there was no way that was going to work. I think that because the alarm was BLARING so loud, none of us could think straight. But eventually Betsey got the bright idea to call the fire department to get them to turn off the alarm. Soon a big red fire truck showed up and 3 burly firefighters climbed down. They not only figured out a way to turn the alarm off, they also helped us lift Mom into the car. Thank God! We were finally on the way to the hospital.

She had been released from that very same hospital just 3 days earlier, but we had to tell our story three times to three different nurses. I instructed my mom to act like she was in "intractable pain," which by that time after all she had been through, was not hard for her to do. Two hours later, we got word that they were taking Mom to a room, but we were still in suspense, were they officially admitting her or not? Shortly after they had brought her to her room, an orderly came to take my mom to get an MRI, a test they hadn't bothered to do the first time she'd been at the hospital. While she was gone, a Dr. Julian Munoz came in to talk to me. He was 30-something, cute, and had a Cubano accent. He was very somber as he told me that the prognosis for these kinds of fractures in elderly people is not good. 25% die within a year. Even though hers was a simple fracture, he told me that it's not the broken bone that kills them, but complications like pneumonia that result from being bedridden and subsequent falls.

After giving me that sober warning, he told me that he was going to admit our mom for a few days so that they could treat her for pain with intravenous drugs and do some further testing, then he was going to recommend that she be released to a rehabilitation facility. I was SO relieved! Of course, it was all contingent on Medicare approval. I later told my sister she might still have to fight to make sure our mom got the care she needed. Betsey is just not as assertive as I am. I told her she would have to channel her inner me. "You mean my inner bitch!" she said. Well, yes, I agree. I am more of a bitch than she is.

So what have we learned here? 1.) If you're older or in poor health, you need a friend or relative who will advocate for you if you become sick or injured. Preferably one who lives in the same town as you do. Because in their zeal to cut costs, hospital administrators make decisions that are not in their patients' best interest. Does it really make sense that hospitals are for-profit operations? Should someone really be making money off my mother's pain and suffering? 2.) "Home health care" is a complete misnomer. How is it health care when no one is providing even a modicum of care? All they do is fill out the paperwork so they can bill Medicare for the care they are NOT providing. What a rip-off.

Update: It turned out our mom's pelvis was fractured in 3 places. She is now out of the hospital and in a rehab facility where she's getting daily physical therapy. I don't know how long she will stay there, but I hope it's long enough for her to fully recover from her injuries and go back to living independently.

The Vixen sometimes struggles with the internets...

2010-01-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

Why the Onion is America's Finest News Source

2010-01-15T20:10:00.001-08:00

This video speaks for itself

New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

Check Your Rights at the Door, Pregnant Lady!

2010-01-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about a recent case that has got me really riled up, and if it doesn't disturb you, too, then you must watch Fox News. If you are a woman or a man who cares about women and this doesn't scare the bejesus out of you, you're just not paying attention.

A Florida doctor ordered "bedrest" for a woman who was 25 weeks pregnant and apparently at risk of miscarrying. She told him that she couldn't just go to bed for the rest of her pregnancy because she had a job and two small children to take care of. So the doctor reported her to Florida's version of DCS, who ordered her confined to a hospital and denied her request to be transferred to another hospital where she could get a second opinion. The ACLU took up her cause and appealed to Florida's 1st District Court of Appeal. And the court sided with the state. Check this out:

After a brief telephone hearing, and no review of her medical records or consideration of a second medical opinion, the circuit court summarily ordered Ms. Burton to submit to any and all medical treatments and interventions — including eventually a C-section — that the hospital's medical staff deemed appropriate. To top it off, the court ordered her to remain confined on constant bed rest at the very hospital where the disagreement arose, and expressly prohibited her from switching to another hospital.

Let's review: a woman tells a doctor she can't comply with his recommendation of bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy. The doctor reports her to DCS, as he would a child abuser. For the safety of the fetus, the woman is confined to a hospital against her will, away from her small children who need her, and ordered to submit to any and all medical treatment the doctors order, whether she wants it or not.

Read more about this outrageous case here: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/reader-diaries/2010/01/13/court-forces-bed-rest-pregnant-woman and here: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/is-refusing-bed-rest-a-crime/

If you haven't read "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, you really should. It was also made into a movie in 1990, starring Robert Duvall and Natasha Richardson. The current parallels with Atwood's apocalyptic future are unnerving. In her dystopian world, there was an epidemic of infertility, especially among the upper class. With the blessing of the government, wealthy couples could kidnap or buy a woman of proven fertility to act as a "handmaid" who would live with the couple and have sex with the husband (which neither was supposed to enjoy) until she produced a child. The wealthy couple would then take the baby from its rightful mother, discard the now unneeded broodmare, and raise the precious child as their own. The "handmaids" themselves had no rights or significance; their only value was in their ability to produce babies.

Does a woman forfeit her Constitutional rights just because she forgot to take a pill or the condom broke? When is a potential human (a fetus) more deserving of human rights than a fully grown woman? Even when a woman is pregnant with a much-wanted child, shouldn't her health and well-being take precedence over that of the fetus, which is always just a potential human until it is actually born? I'm really disturbed by the way our society is going on this issue.

Also, who is supposed to pay for the expensive hospital stay and medical treatment that this woman tried to refuse? It's not clear whether she is insured or not. If she's not insured, how much do you want to bet the hospital has already sent her a bill for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars? If she is poor and on Medicaid, who do you think is going to pick up the tab? Yep, you and I are, as taxpayers. Even if she is insured, her insurance company will pass the costs of her treatment on to consumers through higher premiums, fees and deductibles. Ultimately we'll all pay more. In a world of constantly rising medical costs is that a good use of our limited health care funds?

January 15, 2010 update:

I found another news article about this case: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-court-orders-pregnant-woman-bed-rest-medical/story?id=9561460

This story clarifies some facts in the case. For example, the woman was only confined to the hospital for 3 days before she miscarried, thereby ending her forced confinement. And...she smoked cigarettes. But while everyone knows smoking isn't good for the fetus, smoking is still a legal activity that a lot of Americans indulge in. It's not like she was smoking crack. I still don't understand why her doctor took this adversarial attitude toward her. Why confine her to a hospital against her will?

Grief and Blogging

2010-01-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

Memphis blogger and local political junkie Steve Steffens tragically lost his companion of 20 years this week. I met Lauren Hesse once at a Drinking Liberally meet-up a few weeks ago. She seemed like a quiet, thoughtful person. She didn't say a lot, but her love for Steve shone on her face. Newscoma wrote a moving tribute to her here.

I learned through the blogosphere that Lauren suffered a sudden and massive heart attack over the weekend. One thing social media is great at is spreading news. There was an immediate outpouring of sympathy for Steve and Lauren's family in the blogging community. Like so many of Steve's friends and fellow bloggers, my heart goes out to him. I've lost both my grandmothers, an aunt and worst of all, my father, but it's hard for me to imagine losing a mate. After a certain age we expect to lose our parents and other relatives. Intellectually we know it's going to happen some day. But when you plan your life around another person as Steve did with Lauren and the way the Captain and I have with each other--the loss must seem unbearable. However, life goes on for the living.

This sudden loss really brought home to me that every day we share with a loved one is precious. I resolve to never let a day go by without telling the Captain how much I love him. Life is short, and we must never take each other for granted while we share this world together.

For your holiday enjoyment

2009-12-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

The Cootie and her toy possum!

Man's Inhumanity to Woman

2009-11-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

The trial of a Marianna, Arkansas man accused in the rape and bludgeoning death of a Little Rock TV anchorwoman finally ended today when the jury handed down a guilty verdict, and am I ever glad it's over. Read more about the trial here on KATV's website. The investigation into the murder of 26-year-old Anne Pressly, an anchorwoman on KATV's morning show, received a lot of media attention here in Memphis, partly because the victim was a graduate of Rhodes College here in Memphis and partly because the suspect was a resident of Marianna, Arkansas, which is in the Memphis viewing area. As the trial unfolded, I read and heard a lot about the crime...horrible things...and lately I have been having bad dreams.

I think the dreams started with the October trial of Lemaricus Davidson, a Memphis native who was found guilty in the 2007 rapes of murders of 21-year-old University of Tennessee student Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Newsom. That was another crime that got a lot of Memphis coverage because of the Memphis connection. Click here to read more in the Commercial Appeal. It was a particularly brutal crime: the couple was abducted in Knoxville during a 2007 carjacking by several armed men. Both the man and woman were raped, afterwards, the "lucky" one, the man, was fatally shot. The woman, Channon Christian, was repeatedly raped and beaten over a period of more than 24 hours. Then she suffocated after she was choked and then stuffed in a garbage bag and trash can. Let me make this clear--she was folded and stuffed, while still alive, into a kitchen-sized garbage can. She died of what is called "positional asphyxiation." In other words, she might have survived her injuries, but she couldn't breathe after being stuffed into a kitchen-sized garbage can.

I'm told that the evidence in this case was so horrifying that one of the prosecutors fainted in the courtroom. It was so horrible that the hard-bitten journalists at the Commercial Appeal decided to leave some details out of the stories that were eventually printed because they were deemed too shocking to be published in the newspaper.

The trial in the Pressly murder case was just as shocking. The young anchorwoman Anne Pressly was beaten until every bone in her face was shattered. Her pale blond hair was so soaked with blood that emergency room doctors thought she was a redhead. She died of her injuries five days later. Medical examiners determined that what killed her was a blow to her face so powerful that her jaw was forced to the back of her head and cut off blood flow to her brain. Pressly was also raped, but apparently it's not clear whether that occurred before, after or during the savage beating. As if the facts of the case weren't bad enough, the worst aspect of this case, in my opinion, is that Pressly's own mother is the one who discovered her shattered body barely clinging to life. Can you imagine? Anne Pressly was her only child.

I think maybe the Pressly murder really hit home for me because I, too am a Rhodes College graduate. I also worked in morning television in my early 20's. I, too, reported to work at strange hours and lived an upside down life. I, too, came home and left for work at odd times. I don't know anything about the neighborhood where Pressly lived, but I know that when I was young and making very little money in television, I lived in some very cheap apartments in some very scary neighborhoods. I, too, could have been attacked, beaten and raped like Pressly was, and left for my mother to find.

Hence, the dreams. Several times now I have dreamed I am being attacked and raped. In the dream I am so terrified! I know I'm going to die! I wake up and I still feel like I'm suffocating... It takes me a long time to calm my breathing and racing heartbeat. Am I haunted by the ghosts of these murder victims? No, I don't believe in supernatural hauntings. I believe that hearing about these murders has brought a primal fear shared by all women to the surface of my consciousness. We are all afraid of being raped. More than that, and worse than that, we are all afraid of being utterly destroyed--beaten until we're unrecognizable like Anne Pressly was--treated like we are so much garbage like Channon Christian was. Women survive rape--in fact, they survive it every day. But no one can survive the kind of attack that was perpetrated on those two women. Their attackers wanted to do more than just hurt them--they wanted to mutilate them and destroy their very humanity.

Another thread connects these two brutal murder cases. According to their defense attorneys, both Curtis Vance and Lemaricus Davidson were the victims of child abuse. Their attorneys used testimony about the abuse these young men suffered to try to convince the juries to be lenient on them. The jurors would have none of that, and neither will I. While I know it's true that many serial killers and perpetrators of other brutal crimes were themselves victimized as children, I don't think that excuses them. Millions of children are victims of abuse. Heck, if you think child abuse is bad now, just imagine what it was like decades ago, when adults in positions of authority looked the other way when a child showed up to school with bruises or a black eye. No, whatever happened to Vance and Davidson when they were young was not nearly as bad as what they did to Pressly and Christian. How do I know that? I know it from what's happened to me in my dreams... I just hope the dreams will stop now that the trials are over.

What the Hell is Wrong with the Memphis Animal Shelter?

2009-11-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

I went to the candlelight vigil at the Memphis Animal Shelter tonight for the poor dog that was starved to death. I would say there were 200-300 people there. The poster-dog for this protest is a 5-month old Pit Bull-lab mix, now nicknamed "Justice." She was seized as part of an animal cruelty case and put in a cage at the animal shelter marked, "Hold for Court." Just about two weeks later, she was dead. A necropsy done by an outside veterinarian indicates the puppy was intentionally starved to death.

It's pictures of "Justice" released by the Shelby County Sheriff's Department along with the search warrant that incited so many people to come out on a chilly November evening and risk their lives to park along Tchulahoma and Winchester in that rather scary area where the shelter is located. The pictures of "Justice" printed in the Commercial Appeal this week...the first one showed a friendly-looking young white dog with a goofy spot over one eye--a dog that looked young enough to be rehabilitated, maybe even be adopted by a family looking for a pet. But unfortunately "Justice" would never get that chance... On the same page, the paper printed another picture of "Justice," showing an emaciated husk of a dog shortly before her death. If you saw that second picture, it haunts your dreams. I won't post it here because I need to be able to sleep tonight. But if you want to see it and read more about the raid on the animal shelter, you can go to commercialappeal.com.

The protest was a low-key affair. We held candles as cars drove by and honked. At times someone would start a chant such as "Fire them all!" But the chants would usually die out, as the crowd was motivated and sincere, but not very organized. No one gave any speeches, but several reporters showed up. Newschannel 3's Tom Powell did a live shot during the 6 o'clock news. After that, Mayor Wharton's top aide, Bobby White, appeared and began to speak individually to some members of the crowd. I give the new Mayor points for sending White to represent him at the vigil. It's the sort of thing that Mayor Herenton would never have done. Heck, he seldom even showed up at city-sponsored events! I heard later on the 10 o'clock news that Mayor Wharton plans to make an announcement regarding the Animal Shelter at a news conference at 10 tomorrow morning. Let's hope he makes a lasting change that really makes a difference in the way these animals are treated. Because no creature on this earth deserves to die the way "Justice" did.

Cute, fluffy and not afraid to leave a mess on the sidewalk.

2009-10-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Foxes live among us. They may look like tame pets, but beware. The teeth and claws are sharp. Also, they are known to carry rabies...