Let me repeat that: obtaining a court order may be the only way she could afford contraception.

Given the realities of TX, how do you know this is not true? How much of our framing, where we assume access to contraception and our right to refuse men who won’t wear condoms? Do we know she has had those rights?

As for “when the government starts telling you to get a nuvaring,” that has already happened. Well, actually it was norplant. Judges have ordered that women be implanted with it as terms of probation. I can’t remember whether or not if those rulings were overturned, but the fact is that it has happened. I don’t expect the vast majority of people to know that (though I wish they did), but you might want to check in on these things before accusing someone of overreacting.

Right there Quilter, you seem to be directly connecting the idea that she was abused with the fact that she did not obtain medical care for her child, and saying that even if the former were true, there’s still no excuse for the latter. I already explained why that assumption is rather short-sighted.

Forced sterilization was a shameful part of our past. I do not want to see poor women or developmentally handicapped women serilized or forced to take birth control.

It’s not just a frequent part of our past, it’s a less-frequent part of our present. If you click on the links I provided, you’ll see that.

The “feminist stance” which holds that no barriers can be placed on women either by not allowing them to get pregnant or by not allowing them access to abortion makes no sense to me. We do not live in a libertarian, laissez faire society.

Then I’m really not sure we have anything left to discuss. Except to say that you would be false in my particular case when you say “no barriers,” as for example, surrogacy and egg donation are regularly very exploitative and I certainly do believe there ought to be barriers in those cases. And so my stance is not one that I would call “libertarian” but rather supportive of reproductive justice. It is in fact quite possible to protect the rights of both women and children by addressing the root causes of problems rather than just throwing people on the prison merry-go-round and barring them from having children.

The “feminist stance” which holds that no barriers can be placed on women either by not allowing them to get pregnant or by not allowing them access to abortion makes no sense to me. We do not live in a libertarian, laissez faire society. I am glad we don’t. I don’t agree with the laissez faire philosophy. But that does mean that we are responsible for one another.

If we use jails for people who break laws, then the government has control over people’s liberty. That does not mean it is a slippery slope to a society where we no longer have control over our liberty. I think the same can be argued in this case.

The damage done to children born to drug addicted mothers, abusive parents and so on is staggering. It is no less a problem than spousal violence. In both cases (spousal and child abuse) you have a completely innocent party who is at the mercy of another.

It is society who has to shoulder the burden for abused children. I beleive you when you say that you are willing to pay higher taxes so proper services can be offered to these children, such as safe homes to put them in. But some problems cannot be corrected such as the child who suffers permanent developmental damage from gestating in the womb of a drug abuser. I don’t want to see addiction become a crime and I don’t want to see these women go to jail, but I DO want to stop them from getting pregnant.

Forced sterilization was a shameful part of our past. I do not want to see poor women or developmentally handicapped women serilized or forced to take birth control. But I think that is a different situation from a woman who has been convicted of an especailly egregious case of child neglect. She is not permanently stopped from having children. She can have children when her probation period is over.

There is more to consider than the woman’s reproductive rights here. There is the welfare of the children she may choose to bring into the world.

He wants to intimidate her into having no more children, playing on her fear and ignorance. I don’t know if that’s worse or better.