I can’t stress this enough: Not the Onion.
Kim Blalock had back problems before she became pregnant. She suffered from arthritis and degenerative disc disease. Surgical complications and a car accident the year before her pregnancy made her pain even worse.
Blalock, a married stay-at-home mother of six, managed her condition under the care of a local orthopedist. He prescribed hydrocodone, one of the most common medications for patients with chronic pain. It enabled the 36-year-old to keep up with her young children and two older teens.
“There are days that I can’t get up,” said Blalock, who lives in Florence in north Alabama. “There are days where I’m OK, and there are days that are just horrible. It is debilitating. I have a lot of pain and limited mobility, and I’ve got two little kids (and older ones) who need me all day.”
One of the things people fail to understand is how draconian and backwards Republican legislators are. Women are more often the main target of their ire.
Alabama’s drug laws are some of the toughest in the nation. One of those laws is Alabama Code – Section 26-15-3.2: Chemical Endangerment of Exposing a Child to an Environment in Which Controlled Substances are Produced or Distributed. This is more commonly known as Alabama’s chemical endangerment law.
Since the law’s inception in 2006, the way it is used by law enforcement and prosecutors has changed dramatically. Here is what people need to know about this controversial law:
The chemical exposure law makes it a class c felony when a person “Knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance, chemical substance, or drug paraphernalia.” As such, it carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Note that there need be no evidence of any harm to the child in order to obtain a conviction.
The story does go on to explain she was charged:
But that didn’t satisfy the Florence Police Department or Lauderdale County District Attorney’s Office, which investigated and charged Blalock with prescription fraud for not telling her orthopedist she was pregnant.
What is being alleged here is that she withheld her pregnancy from her orthopedist, who would according to the DA, have gone on to warn her against taking the Hydrocodone. But again, this is taking a medical choice away from women and leaving doctors and prosecutors to decide for them.
And studies are not clear on the subject in any case:
It is not known if taking hydrocodone during pregnancy increases the chance of having a baby with a birth defect. Two studies reported that taking hydrocodone in the first trimester increased the chance of heart defects.
Women have to do everything. They have to have the kids, raise the kids, work, work at home (YES Social Security it is a full-time and then some job, they have to drive the kids to school, they have to be tough but not “shrill” sweet but not weak, attractive but not sexy, or depending on the job sexy but not slutty, smart but not too smart that it threatens the senior associate who spends most of his time golfing, and if they are a black woman they have to do all that plus add just the right amount of whiteness to their voice, dress, and hair. So yes, back pain might be an effing problem for women.)
A pregnant mother with back pain faces 10 years in prison in the United States of America.
In 2021.
Carry on.
-ROC
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-ROC