Okay, so maybe she was jailed and shackled during childbirth because she is an undocumented immigrant caught driving without a license. Either way, the treatment of this pregnant woman and her infant is barbaric. If anyone other than government officials treated a pregnant woman and her infant so shabbily, they'd be charged with child abuse.
Stories like this one right here in my own backyard make me want to urge women everywhere to just stop giving birth. If we do that long enough, maybe the assholes who seem to be in charge of everything will learn to show a little respect to the women who do the essential and laborious and unpaid reproductive work!
New York Times (via Jezebel):
It started when Juana Villegas, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was nine months pregnant, was pulled over by a police officer in a Nashville suburb for a routine traffic violation. By the time Mrs. Villegas was released from the county jail six days later, she had gone through labor with a sheriff’s officer standing guard in her hospital room, where one of her feet was cuffed to the bed most of the time. County officers barred her from seeing or speaking with her husband. . After she was discharged from the hospital, Mrs. Villegas was separated from her nursing infant for two days and barred from taking a breast pump into the jail, her lawyer and a doctor familiar with the case said. Her breasts became infected, and the newborn boy developed jaundice.
NewsChannel5: Police Claim Legitimate Arrest; Woman Clams Racial Profiling: During the traffic stop along Bransford Avenue in South Nashville Villegas was able to produce a valid vehicle registration and consulate photo identification: two documents that should have averted an arrest.
Knoxville News Sentinel: Use of shackles upsets lawyer
Graphic: Diego Rivera
Patriarchy News Feminist Politics Reproductive Work Tennessee Immigrant Rights
