19-year-old woman miscarries, sentenced to 10 years in jail

[Nekojin]

I thought the American Pro-Life movement was bad, but this is insane:

http://jezebel.com/salvadoran-woman-...s-i-1449494825

Short version: El Salvadoran woman goes to the hospital because she feels badly ill, it turns out that she's having a miscarriage on an unborn child she didn't even realize she was pregnant with. Hospital staff suspects that it was a deliberate, self-induced miscarriage, and call the police on her. She's tried, convicted, and sentenced (in absentia) to 10 years in jail while she's still in the hospital, recovering from the miscarriage.

And this isn't just a one-off thing, either, as the article points out. Women in El Salvador are reluctant to seek medical care for exactly these reasons.

[Panacea]

We have similar problems here in the US.

In South Carolina, if you bear a baby who is drug positive, they throw you in jail. So many women are having their kids alone, with no help, or going to neighboring states to have them.

[hinakiba777]

She got charged with murder because she wasn't able to "save the baby"? Wow, that is really sad. I mean, it makes sense why women in that situation would avoid hospital, and even opt for suicide. Suicide is better than a slow death from miscarriage or pregnancy complications. That is just horrible.

[SongsOfDragons]

The BBc article about this bullshit stated that a high percentage of female teenage suicides are found to be pregnant.

It's fucking sickening. I don't care what reasons they claim. :burn: Remind me to never visit El Salvador or give money to any charity that works there.

[Hyena Dandy]

Remind me to never visit El Salvador or give money to any charity that works there.

Wait, what? Okay, "Don't go to El Salvador" is fine. But "Don't give money to people who want to help poor or sick people because they might help someone from El Salvador"? THAT is some bullshit right there. It's one to not want to go somewhere with bad laws. It's another to decide not to give money to HELP people in a place. Or do you figure if they wanted help with water filtration, healthcare, STD vaccines, food, etc... THey should have had the common sense not to be born in a shitty country? I mean, seriously, what is your rationale for "Don't give to charities that operate there"?

[SongsOfDragons]

Yup. Quite simple, I can't help every poor and needy waif in the world, so I have to prioritise if choosing a charity box in the shop with spare change. If it's a bunch of 'help the foreign needy' boxes then my only point of reference is going to be the country's laws and ethics. The four-or-so countries in the world with these bullshit anti-women laws are getting nothing from me unless said charity is committed to pressuring the government to change it. And I will criticise their laws all I want; everyone else criticises the UK's, the US's, the EU's - so contrary to popular belief they are not above criticism either. Hell even Saudi bloody Arabia has at last I checked abortion laws that covers at least poor health. I'm sick of, in this day and age, lawmakers thinking this shit is okay to proliferate.

[Nyoibo]

So your reasoning for not helping people who are in need because of their government is, their government, right gotcha...

[Hyena Dandy]

Do you know what a charity is? I think we need to explain what that is, because unless you're grossly misunderstanding They tend to give money to people, not the government you disapprove of. That would be a lobbying group.

You won't donate to charities that want to improve education... Or access to healthcare... Or housing... Because the person who gets that might live in a place where the government has laws you don't like.

You know, there are a lot of places in the US that have laws that I don't like. For instance, Texas is trying to pass a law that would make it more difficult for women to vote. That said, I'm comfortable giving money to Feeding America, and I'm totally comfortable with the fact that a Texan might benefit.

You want legislators to change. Great, I do too. But you know what? I also want people to NOT FREAKING DIE. The places with horrible laws like this are, incidentally, also the places that tend to have people being fucked over by the government... And, you know, that people tend to get fucked by the government... That's a thing you're disapproving of. So, you're refusing to help people who are getting fucked over by the government, because you DON'T LIKE THE GOVERNMENT.

So you'll donate only to charities that don't operate in places where the government doesn't fuck people over as badly.

I get the need to prioritize your giving. I don't get why you're prioritizing it AWAY from the people who need it more.

[draco664]

A lot of charities are set up to benefit the people that run the charity *first* and then those in need.

At the risk of sounding like a shill, I use Kiva. It is a micro-lending site where you can lend or gift $25 to a specific person/group somewhere in the world, and they get the loan at much more favourable terms than they would through a for-profit org. They pay the money back and you then pick someone else to lend it to. Over the past 5 years, every dollar I've put up has been lent out more than 11 times.

There's still the risk of default, and you are lending at 0 interest, but you're *directly* helping specific people to improve their own lives.

[siead_lietrathua]

whoah, guys calm down. for one, songs of dragons didn't say they wouldn't give period, they said:

The four-or-so countries in the world with these bullshit anti-women laws are getting nothing from me unless said charity is committed to pressuring the government to change it.

and second, that's not terrible reasoning. we all only have so much money to give. choosing not to donate to a country you are in no way affiliated with over their women's rights is no less terrible than, say, not donating to Uganda because of their homosexuality laws.
EVERY country has people that require help and charities that do it, and we aren't all billionaire philanthropists. we have to pick our battles based on the information we get, which tends to be limited to what we hear about the governments.
if songs of dragons chooses to use what money they can donate towards causes that helps women's rights than that's their choice. if a country doesn't have those organizations, then songs shouldn't feel obligated to donate to them.

my partner and i only donate to local charities. it's a choice we made. does that make us terrible people for not helping the starving kids in other countries? no. we just prioritized what we would like to donate to based on our own ethics. as everyone has the right to do.

[SongsOfDragons]

Thanks Siead

[Hyena Dandy]

and second, that's not terrible reasoning. we all only have so much money to give. choosing not to donate to a country you are in no way affiliated with over their women's rights is no less terrible than, say, not donating to Uganda because of their homosexuality laws.

Yeah. It's equally stupid in both cases. Again, you're NOT DONATING TO UGANDA. You're donating to a charity that WORKS in Uganda. I'm all for gay rights. But I won't refuse to donate to a charity BECAUSE it works in Uganda. I will certainly refuse to donate to a charity that pushes those laws, but I won't not donate to Doctors Without Borders, on the grounds that maybe they'll help Ugandans.

if songs of dragons chooses to use what money they can donate towards causes that helps women's rights than that's their choice.

There's a big difference between "I want to donate to international women's rights organizations" and "I would donate to an organization that does something other than women's rights, but if it does work in El Salvador, I won't."

my partner and i only donate to local charities. it's a choice we made. does that make us terrible people for not helping the starving kids in other countries? no. we just prioritized what we would like to donate to based on our own ethics. as everyone has the right to do.

No, it doesn't. But one, I can question an ethical system, and two, entirely false equivalence. This is more like there's a church in your town that preaches really virulent anti-gay things. And you're refusing to donate to a food bank because it doesn't ban that church's parishioners.

Edit: False equivalence on my part. At least people who go to that church actually have a CHOICE about it. It's a trait related to them. I suppose more like stopping donating to local charities because your candidate lost the mayoral election.

[Andara Bledin]

This whole donation tangent is really OT, but not donating to a charity that helps repressed people survive because that charity isn't focusing on making them less repressed (which it actually is, just in a less direct and potentially more sustainable manner) seems an awfully strange qualifier.

[siead_lietrathua]

Yeah. It's equally stupid in both cases. Again, you're NOT DONATING TO UGANDA. You're donating to a charity that WORKS in Uganda. I'm all for gay rights. But I won't refuse to donate to a charity BECAUSE it works in Uganda. I will certainly refuse to donate to a charity that pushes those laws, but I won't not donate to Doctors Without Borders, on the grounds that maybe they'll help Ugandans.
There's a big difference between "I want to donate to international women's rights organizations" and "I would donate to an organization that does something other than women's rights, but if it does work in El Salvador, I won't."

i can see where you are thinking it's an issue. but there's a difference between donating to a charity like "doctors without borders" that's both international and impartial, VS donating to a charity called, say, "el salvador relief" that may be influenced by both the government and prevailing religious groups of that country, and choosing to NOT donate to them. it's kinda like how many people in the USA/ Canada don't donate to salvation army any more because of their perceived homophobia, and instead donate to another group.

No, it doesn't. But one, I can question an ethical system, and two, entirely false equivalence. This is more like there's a church in your town that preaches really virulent anti-gay things. And you're refusing to donate to a food bank because it doesn't ban that church's parishioners.

well no, it's more like not donating to a food bank run BY the church, and instead donating to an impartial food bank.

(and the ethical system for us is kind of a "how can we bitch about starving kids in other countries when we have ones in our own city that are" but i live in a high unemployment/poverty/drug area.)