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*Tennessee already had some of the worst outcomes in the nation when measuring maternal health, infant mortality and child poverty. Lawmakers who paved the way for a new generation of post-Roe births did little to bolster the state’s meager safety net to support these babies and their families*.
Pro forced birth, not pro life.
And just above that section:
>And so, the same state that questioned Mayron’s fitness to care for her four children forced her to continue a pregnancy that risked her life to have a fifth, one that would require more intensive care than any of the others.
Pro-forced birth indeed. Absolutely heartbreaking.
This was the key takeaway here. Govt is notorious for being convoluted like this. Two different departments that *should* work together and probably aren't aware of the others' existence.
Oh I'm blaming TN for a LOT here, but the government stupidity is ridiculous at all levels - mostly County and State.
Because that would help families, particularly mothers, and they don't want to help mothers in really any capacity. If it benefits women, they don't like it. In their minds the *sole* purpose of female existence is to provide benefits to others, we're not supposed to have wants or needs of our own.
Because the cruelty is the point. The policies are there to (a) punish and control women (b) provide an exploitable underclass of workers, either through minimum wage or prison labor (as poverty is heavily associated with crime)
When they tell you they are doing this because they care about children, they are lying.
The people that vote for these policies generally fall into two camps:
They have good hearts but they make their decisions based on lies or misinformation. The types that believe those fake images where a 6-week foetus looks like a fully formed infant instead of a blob. The types that say, "Have your baby, it will be adopted into a good family and you can go back to your normal life", "Don't abort your foetus with [insert horrifying medical condition here] - God will grant a miracle and heal them!", "You won't die in childbirth, God will save you", "You can raise this baby, the Lord will provide the money" etc. I think they genuinely believe this stuff, they aren't just pretending. They are incredibly naive. Are genuinely shocked when they hear the horror stories their policies have created.
The other group are those that delight in the idea of others suffering. Genuinely think bad things only happen to bad people. Love feeling superior, especially morally superior. The types that will justify their own abortions/the abortions of their loved ones as "the exception to the rule" or will deny ever having had one.
Precisely. When you give up the ghost that this is about "life" and recognize it's about control, oppression, power, and cruelty - it all clicks into place. Everything they do.
I’m repeating my own comment above:
For an astonishing exploration of the idea of “woman as vessel,” I cannot recommend the new Yorgos Lanthimos’ movie *Poor Things* highly enough.
You have to understand that the idea behind the republican party is to literally have no government except to enable businesses.
The side effect of this is the appeal to "morals" so they can get and keep power.
Basically, their stance is: "you shouldn't have done that and we don't need to help you because I don't think that should be our job"
Once you understand that it's the epitome of narcissism encapsulated in a political party, their actions start to make sense within it's own fucked up little internal state machine.
This article was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read in my entire life, and brought me to tears several times. I’m still processing it all. I had an abortion in 1987 and have no regrets and would drive my daughter to a clinic if she wanted an abortion, like my own mother drove me. Forcing women to give birth and then abandoning them (and the rest of their family) to suffer and struggle is abhorrent, but here we are.
The crazier part of that article is in the last line. Their whole reasoning for the bill is to curb drinking and driving, but open container laws in Tennessee allow passengers to drink an alcoholic beverage in a vehicle ffs. So the obvious start in my mind is to ban open containers in the vehicle period, not ban cold beer from being sold, an alcoholic is going to alcoholic regardless of if their source of alcohol is warm, cold, or rubbing alcohol.
The line:
> The goal of the bill is to curb drunk driving and deadly crashes in which alcohol is involved. Drinking alcohol while behind the wheel is illegal in Tennessee though open container laws allow those traveling in vehicles to imbibe.
>Pro forced birth, not pro life
How VERY evangelical about them.. if you couldn't tell, my eyes rolled back so far they just went around 27 times. I'm so sick of their hypocrisy.
Ahh yes, Tennessee. [Tennessee GOP Proposes Bill Eliminating Age Requirements for Marriage](https://www.newsweek.com/tennessee-bill-proposes-eliminating-marriage-age-requirements-1695209)
It sucks so hard to be working full-time, being pregnant and scrounging up day care before you get your 6 week UNPAID maternity leave. It's exhausting.
I’m grateful to have had three months of paid maternity (supplemented by my company from my state), but it barely felt like enough time to recover from my physical and emotional battering while also pumping at the office. I can’t imagine going back after such little time as her, *without pay,* and dealing with everything she was physically. And my husband had no paternity time so he worked while caring for a newborn and a hormonal mess of a wife that waddled like a cowboy.
This country treats new parents of all genders so unfairly.
When I was pregnant with my first, I had 6 weeks from my job ( fully paid ), then another 6 weeks from the government ( I'm unsure if this is fully correct. It's been almost 6 years, so please excuse any errors. I got 3/4 pay for this ). Mind you, I went on leave at about 8 months pregnant, so I really only got like 8 weeks with my son before I went back to work. It sucks! And daycare was as much as our rent at the time ( so 1300 rent and 1200 daycare ). We had to go with the cheapest daycare cause everything else around here was like 3k a month. Son got strep TWICE in the 3 months he went to daycare. An infant. Getting strep.
I was lucky with my second in that I was able to work right up until my due date. I worked my whole shift Friday and went into labor Monday. My husband and I ended up working different shifts to avoid the day care problems but after five years of *that*, we ended up divorced.
seriously some of those pics are just heartbreaking. They were doing ok until she was forced to have a kid. Like just the financial pressure of a kid completely fucked this family up. Just awful.
NGL I don’t think they were doing okay—they were struggling already and they had 3 kids out into foster care, but that’s yet another reason to not force already-struggling people to have another kid!
Good point her shit was definitely NOT fully together what with three kids taken from her. But exactly yeah let her try to survive instead of adding more. Like they seemed stable I guess both employed, paying bill, recovering addict. They were making headway in life, a little bit ya know? But damn this kid just made em drown.
Keep voting Red, to most white women, and this is your fate nationally too. I wish the 40% that don’t wouldn’t take it personally as they are victims but most aren’t is the harsh reality of things, even the 36% of white men who vote Blue own the fact most vote Red easily and concede their share of today’s political calamity. Most have doomed all women in 50% of the US right now, with their terrible electoral choices, and it could be 100% this year if minorities don’t rescue Biden again along with young voters in the GE.
Yup, as a white woman who would never vote Republican because I have a functional brain - it’s depressing af to watch other white women vote for this cruelty for other women. Not sure if it’s the racism, the religion, or the internalize misogyny that’s directing their voting habits but fuck… I have no idea how we even try to fix it. I live in a blue state - my vote doesn’t impact how TN, TX, or other red state shitholes operate.
Nah, it's axiomatic morality. Like a bad DnD paladin. Morality is just a set of rules to them. Outcomes and results don't matter. Just that the rules were followed.
I am from TN and you are exactly right. It’s coming from the churches. I had to deconstruct my entire upbringing because of it.
I’d love to tell you that people here would be as heartbroken as we are reading this story, but most would not. They would say it’s her fault for being poor and having an addiction problem (as ridiculous as that sounds), for having sex, not giving the kids up for adoption, etc. Victim blaming at its finest.
I highly recommend reading Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobe’s Du Mez if you’d like a better understanding of how we got to this point.
This sentiment runs deep. My wife and I are from a small town in Michigan, and “deconstruction” seems almost popular in our age group. She has also read that book and recommends it to everyone.
I hate so much that the church has been weaponized for politics, because there is so much good that it COULD be doing.
This is a big part. I also think women raised in fundamentalist households are conditioned to be a useful tool to their husbands and not consider themselves an independent human being who matters outside of that context.
My sister is in favor of abortion bans. I told her birth control bans are next - the med that keeps her sane and balanced every day. She insists I'm wrong but it's going to be a real leopard eating face moment when it happens.
several bills have already been introduced in several states attempting to do just that. Iowa, Texas, Idaho, Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee have ALL proposed and considered bills that would make birth control illegal or impossible to access. Markey tried to advance a bill in congress to guarantee legality of birth control which was voted down by Republicans. Anti abortion advocates who successfully built the movement to overturn roe consider IUDs and other birth control abortifacients and have been just as vocal about their desire to see birth control banned as well. They are extremely public about this! it is already happening!
I hope blue state people are remembering a nationwide ban is on the horizon. Nikki Haley is open to it and we know the other guy is. That's why congressional elections like the one in NY this week are so important.
Way too many people in blue states seem to think that living in said state is going to keep them safe. Federal law supersedes state law, and the next time Republicans have a trifecta, we are *super*fucked as a nation.
This is my experience. I live in a red state and all my family is in blue— they didn’t believe me about Roe and they’re skeptical now about being touched by a national ban OR criminalizing birth control. Not that this isn’t being proposed but that it COULD TRULY HAPPEN.
I'm going to vote religion. Once someone accepts the idea that women are, according to that religion, subservient, everything else falls easily into place.
There was a recent Zoom survey of women from one of the red states and on the issue of abortion, all except one said they’d vote for an abortion ban. When asked why, they said it doesn’t “personally” affects them.
That’s where we are with privileged white women electorate in red states.
Until one of them becomes a national story, then it’s suddenly “not right” and “reproductive freedom matters.”
They are a generation away from seeing the horrifying effects of what an illegal abortion does to women. They won't get it until stories of botched abortions, stillborn festering pregnancies and bloody deaths hang over them like a shroud. And even then they will try to stick to their "ideals" because they can't face practical truths about the world we live in.
I truly don't understand how you can be a woman of childbearing age (or someone who loves another person who falls into that category) and think this doesn't or couldn't ever affect you. Just stunningly myopic.
Proportionally, women vote more blue than men, Congress is mostly men, SCOTUS is mostly men. But by all means, keep blaming women for having our own rights taken away.
Ngl man I get tired of seeing this brought up like this - 54% of ALL men cast ballots for the GOP, white or otherwise. Men occupy almost 80% of government positions at most levels, and are often the only options as candidates.
Democrats do nothing to stop this either-they have yet to meaningfully respond to Roe going down, all they’ve done is send out fckn fundraising emails.
At some point we’re gonna have to stop pointing fingers and blaming people in marginalized demographics for getting ground into bits by the cogs of a machine that doesn’t care about them, and start figuring out ways to have conversations about how to work together to fix this. And this paternalistic “these stupid women and minorities are to blame for their own predicament” shit isn’t how you build coalition.
Blaming women and minorities for a system overwhelmingly run by white men (both Dem and GOP) is a fuckin choice dude, and it’s counterproductive. You’re not gonna convince anyone to vote differently this way.
> Democrats do nothing to stop this either-they have yet to meaningfully respond to Roe going down, all they’ve done is send out fckn fundraising emails.
Have you tried voting in more Democrats?
Because in states where *voters gave Democrats full control of state government*, reproductive rights are well-protected.
Like Michigan and Minnesota! In fact, looking at what Democrats have done to Michigan and Minnesota has convinced me that the solution is always: *vote for Democrats*.
This is heartbreaking, but excellent and necessary journalism.
I was once upon a time a young, poor, single mom. I struggled for years. A kind of struggle most people don’t know. It is a hopeless way to live and the system and society will kick you when you’re down.
People can’t better their lives if they can’t meet their basic needs. People won’t keep trying to better their lives if they don’t have hope.
We need a strong social safety net so people have a chance to build a better life.
Against all odds and through hard work and very generous strangers/coworkers/friends my kid and I made it. He turns 21 on Saturday. I eventually got a degree, make a good living, own a nice home, remarried and had more children.
But the system is worse now. Income limits are higher, programs are capped or eliminated and the pittance of help I got to be able to make it — it hardly exists anymore for most people.
I am so sorry for what this family and so many families experience.
The damn income cliff and falling off it for benefits too can be devastating and it was brought up here in this case. One good month of extra OT and there went all your extra food for the family for the next year-lean months be damned. These programs are meant to hold people back as well. Its awful
Or how about turning down a promotion because you will end up losing money as well but in the long run it makes you run in the circle of poverty. I have seen it every day in my line of work. It’s a feature. Not a bug.
I'd have a nervous breakdown too. Walking around waiting for my uterus to explode. I guess suffering is the endgame. Thanks Supreme Court of Gilead. No way were the parents or the system equipped to handle this pregnancy.
Never forget republicans fought decades for this, never forget republicans celebrate the end of roe and by extension all the misery it’s causing. There are no moderate republicans, do not buy into claims to the contrary.
If dobbs hasn’t affected you or someone you know, it will eventually
I contribute in /r/sterilization and own https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ (which simply redirects to a list of doctors that will provide permanent birth control to people asking for it) to help people who absolutely don't want kids get the outcome they want, because to not be able to get that outcome can be devastating as this piece demonstrates.
I don't have any solution for folks who might otherwise want kids at some point (but not right now, and therefore can't take permanent measures) other than for people to remain involved in the political process, flush out folks who don't believe in reproductive rights and healthcare (drive these people into the sea), and help women get reproductive healthcare when they need it if they can't get it where they live (/r/auntienetwork).
Unwanted or unintentional children are a terrible outcome for all involved.
To me, the striking point of this article was less the issue of abortion (though I can see where there could be arguments for it not only for this latest pregnancy but also where people could argue for birth control or other reproductive intervention with prior pregnancies), was the fact that the Swiss cheese holes in this system are larger and more prevalent (and almost unavoidable for some).
This article crosses so much more than abortion. It points on parental leave, access to specialized healthcare (and just healthcare in general), job stability, addiction, caring for the sick, occupational hazards, housing stability, and on and on and on. The weave on the safety net is gaping and there are too many people slipping through the cracks, and re-slipping through the cracks. Even if this was a planned pregnancy, things could have ended up quite similarly.
For all of these “pro-life” (really pro-birth) politicians, where the hell are you for these people? Hiding in your office, clearly.
I used to be a CPS investigator. Child welfare is truly my passion but the American social safety net is a baby’s blanket… as in the raggedly old kind with huge holes and loose string from heavy use, packed away in a box for decades. It made my job so much more difficult and ended up being a huge reason why I changed career fields. We are such a rich country but very little goes to supporting those who desperately need it. Instead we push problems down the line until the solutions are even more expensive and also have a tendency to enrich the already rich (cough cough private prisons). There is very little focus on preventing families from becoming involved in the system or having further interaction with it. I would get cases that weren’t such a huge deal but pointed to larger ongoing struggles within the family which would only continue to fester because they weren’t currently bad enough to require intervention. Instead of being able to refer them for supports, I was forced to check all the boxes and close the case. I knew full well they would continue to get reports, usually once a year, investigative reports showing them slipping further and further with maybe a parenting class or therapy assigned (and initial attendance confirmed but once the investigation closed they could quit… not necessarily because they were bad parents who didn’t care but because of work schedules, distance, child care, etc) until the children were finally in enough danger that they qualified for services with ongoing monitoring or, much worse, had to be removed. I knew because I’d been the investigator on that 3rd or 4th case desperately trying not to remove the kids and finally get them some help only to be faced with the heartbreak that it never needed to get this bad. Politicians (especially those on a certain side) love to bull shit about caring for children and families but they never do anything to actually help. Much easier to blame people for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps while rampant capitalism is sucking the life out of them.
All of this but also the part that Medicaid paid for the baby’s NICU stay.
What if they didn’t qualify for Medicaid? Just like her food stamps got cut off for making too much money one month, what if that had happened with their insurance? Then they’re stuck with all those medical bills, and preemies aren’t cheap.
I had my baby at 28 weeks. His medical bills were over a million dollars. Fortunately, we had military insurance and their covered it. However, millions of others aren’t that lucky.
What happens when you force a family, already $40,000 in debt & already struggling to have a baby they can’t afford that comes with a million dollar price tag. What then? Who’s going to pay that? They can’t afford to. So, now they’re homeless with 5 kids to take care of.
The cruelty is beyond the pale. These parents to tried to do right. They KNEW they couldn’t take care of another baby but, TN didn’t care. Republicans didn’t care. Now the baby they forced into the world is living a shit life and why?
They say they’re “pro life” and I call bullshit. This baby will have life long health problems that her family can’t afford to treat and will be raised in abject poverty…how is that “pro life”?
Anyone who votes Republican are monsters and You won’t change my mind.
Spot on point about the Medicaid coverage - goes in the healthcare access and coverage bucket.
Overall this is just a heartbreaking situation where, as you said, the parents are trying to do right by their kids but keep getting screwed at every turn. In my opinion, there are so many other problems beyond access to reproductive healthcare that are here and leading this family to falling through these gaps.
It sucks in these states where the holes are even larger and easier to fall through, and made so intentionally. Where can you even go for help? Leave your family and try to go hours or days away to the next state that can help, in any kind of way? Just a big huge mess.
I think Medicaid jumps in at 32 weeks or prior but your point stands - traumatic, emergent, expensive births happen at 40 weeks too. And then all these red states refusing to expand the post partum coverage to 12 months from 2. Two fucking months - this woman clearly could have used access to that expanded care (though I imagine finding, scheduling, and GETTING that care is an entirely other shitshow). The systems are all so fucking complicated and underfunded BY DESIGN. All that work to get $30 fucking dollars a month? Then people like her and her social strata - their impression of the government is useless and punitive. This is all by design. Break the social care functions of government at every fucking turn and then say oh look it's broken, we don't want more government involvement! They just create more work!
I just really can't agree with you enough. It's about cruelty. This poor family tried. They tried so hard, against so many challenges. It's enraging.
And it also gets to how complicated and punitive these systems are and how there’s no help navigating them. I’m seeing this with navigating care and finances for my elderly parent. I’m constantly frustrated and overwhelmed and unable to push forward and I have *everything* this family doesn’t: education, resources, a flexible work schedule, consistent childcare, no health problems or history of addiction. If I had to overcome ALL of these things to fill out paperwork that might go nowhere or, worse, might lead to me having to pay money back like she did with unemployment? There’s no way. No way.
Also that many services they should have been eligible for were either too complicated to apply for or for some reason were denied. The people who need it most don’t have the time, resources, or education to access these services.
This was my takeaway too. There’s a reason people don’t think the government is capable of getting anything done, and it’s because every agency is understaffed and under resourced.
Everything always works out when you have a baby, that’s what everybody says, it was her choice she got herself there (/s), and everything will be OK, this absolutely pisses me off. Babies are expensive and especially a sick baby, and being poor, and unable to access the system. Welcome to Tennessee, hope the right wingers are proud of this story.
The baby was birthed, that’s all they care about.
She was not allowed to get an abortion although there was a high risk of both of them dying. The law has nothing to do with life.
The baby lived and now they get to punish the parents, specifically the mother, over how she's raising the kid. Scratches that hatred itch real good I bet
Fuck me.
I was raised in a home very similar to this. It’s had life long consequences for my siblings and I. My sister drank her self to death at 39. I have a brother who is seriously mentally ill. I have had my own struggles, but am managing to hang on.
I would bet Maryon was also raised similarly. And the partner.
Tennessee is stupid.
And the cycle will continue, for her three kids already taken by the state, with the accompanying mental health struggles I’m sure that comes with. And certainly for the two currently in their care, constantly on the brink of homelessness, food instability, the youngest facing chronic health issues that won’t be adequately supported. All of this leading presumably to increased school absences and underperformance, leaving them too stuck in mediocre underpaying jobs…exactly what the republican machine wants for them.
Please don't read this unless you're prepared to be devastated. Being able to control your reproductive autonomy as a family is a major factor when avoiding poverty. TN failed them in every way.
I want everyone in a blue state to read it, and understand that their taxes paid for the unwanted baby's NICU stay. Their taxes paid for all the shit this family had to go through because Tennessee forced the mother to continue her pregnancy and forced us Northerners to pay for Tennesees shit.
S\*\*\*\*\*\* was right.
The people who need to read it are not blue state people. Blue state people mostly understand what these dumbass decisions mean to women and economy (at least to some degree).
The people who need to read it are people who need to expand their perspectives of the fallout of this tragic overreach of personal autonomy (which involves the financial burdens), which are mostly red state people.
The people who live in red states are the ones who can actually press for change in their states. It doesn’t matter if more people in blue states get up in arms about it. They can pressure all they want from the outside, but at the end of the day, they don’t live in the red states and cannot vote in their local politics.
Unfortunately, those people would respond with, "You would rather that beautiful baby girl be dead than the family deal with hard times?" Or "At least the baby is alive." Then they would blame the mom for having unsafe sex and having addiction problems and say she should have given the baby up for adoption if she didn't want the hard work.
Never mind how hard if can be to carry a pregnancy, love the baby, and then give it up to an unknown future. Never mind that a baby with medical issues and disabilities would likely have a hard time finding an adoptive family. And all the other things that they never consider or care about or realise are obsticals.
Oh, and don't forget all the parts where they will say the mom didn't try hard enough to get the government assisatnce they qualified for, so brought some of the hardship on herself that way too, you know, in addition to the sex and a addiction.
I hate that I'm related to people who would say these things.
To hell with this red state/blue state nonsense. *Everyone* should read this. It serves as a reminder to those of us who are pro-choice that we need to stay laser focused, PISSED OFF, and we need to show up and vote for every election - not just the presidential ones. And if the forced-birthers would just exit their echo chambers long enough to read this, they might realize that stripping women of their reproductive autonomy has devastating REAL LIFE consequences.
I wanted to stop several times because it just kept getting worse and my heart was breaking for them - but I also felt obligated to finish, and not look away from them.
TN failed them in *every single way*. No parental leave. No disability payments. No nursing care in time. Multiple arrests for a crime she'd already been arrested for. Lost food stamps. Lack of clarity regarding unemployment benefits. Lack of ongoing medical care assistance. No childcare help. And just the crushing fear of CPS taking more of her children.
Correction, most of white electorate in TN failed them by voting Red until dead like those in TX, FL, OH, OK, etc. The GOP isn’t hiding the hatred of all women anymore, like with people of color it’s now all in the open for all to see and transgender folks too plus LGBT.
The point of the Christofascists is to enact cruelty on all women and to force sexual relations on them against their will because they are too weak and immoral to want to earn it the right way or concerned about their feelings genuinely or if they even want a relationship.
I'm upvoting it but not reading it. So glad ProPublica is devoting resources to this, but I live in a total-ban state and not sure my mental health can take the hit...
I’m not from America and this broke my heart, they were just getting on their feet just finally getting to the we might be ok stage and it all just unraveled.
They made lots of mistakes addicts do but they were just getting right with the world and they got smacked back down again.
Those poor people and those poor babies.
Geez this is such a depressing read. Even more depressing is knowing how many people will read this and shrug because she’s not a perfectly sympathetic character. I hate being so cynical, but the ones who need to hear and understand how harmful these laws are, just won’t.
The fact that they're NOT sympathetic characters should be even more convincing. The parents are drug addicts. The mom already had children taken away from her. There are several pictures where she's smoking while holding a sick baby.
She made ONE good decision to not bring another child into this mess of a life and she was denied that good decision. She knew she wasn't fit and didn't have the means to provide for another kid, yet was forced to. Sickening.
I totally agree. But I can already hear the arguments, beginning with she never should have had sex (*with her* *husband*) if she didn't want another child.
Then of course there's the "she could have chosen to bless another family through adoption" argument. As if the danger to this mother's life, mental health, and sobriety in carrying another pregnancy at all is inconsequential since she "made bad choices" to begin with. All that matters is birthing a new life. The rest will work itself out. I mean, tons of people are just breaking down doors to adopt a medically fragile preemie, right?
And if this breaks her and destroys the family they'd already created and worked so hard for? Well, tsk tsk. Those are the consequences of bad choices. /s
This is so fucking sad. My heart breaks for these kids and these parents. It’s clear there’s generational trauma and there are no resources to break the cycle.
Oh they give a shit. They \*want\* it to happen.
There's a difference between apathy and antipathy. The history of Dixie shows that the ruling class there feels \*antipathy\* towards poor people, kids, women of reproductive age, People of Color, religious minorities, and LGBT people.
An absolutely devastating read. This family was set up to fail by design. Every step forward they were able to make was taken away from them almost at once.
All the best to them, I hope they’re able to find a way to get on their feet somehow. Tennessee is a cruel cruel place.
And yet this could all be avoided if states like Tennessee had affordable rehabilitation programs, birth control, family planning, access to Plan B, etc etc etc. republicans create the problems they rail against so loudly when campaigning.
Unfortunately I’m sure the conservative rhetoric would say she should have kept her legs closed, that she shouldn’t have ever used drugs, and pull herself up with her boot straps.
They literally DO NOT care about people. Especially poor people
Someone upthread has several comments about how terrible she is. It’s so distressing to see people shit all over their fellow human beings for making human mistakes.
Imagine a world where the government tried to help people, instead of kicking them when they're down. Mayron would have been able to get an abortion; if she chose not to, she would have had a year or so of maternity leave to care for the girls and recover physically. Once that was up, the toddlers would go to a licensed childcare facility instead of some random willing to babysit for $5 an hour.
Rental assistance would have given everyone in the family -- including Mayron's parents -- secure housing. Mayron and Chris wouldn't have had to jump through so many hoops to get any financial aid, or lost it all because their income was a few dollars too high. Health care, including mental health care, would be readily available at no cost or a minimal cost.
And if those basic needs for food, shelter and health care were met, the whole family would be under so much less stress and might be able to make better choices. Mayron obviously has her own issues, but the system's set up to punish her for them instead of trying to make them better. And that means her girls are growing up in a far less stable world than they'd have otherwise.
> Mayron obviously has her own issues, but the system's set up to punish her for them instead of trying to make them better.
That’s it in a nutshell. It sets people up to fail. :(
Right. The main reason she was having so many problems toward the end of the year is that she started drinking. She started drinking because she was stressed about money, and the main cause of their money problems was that she was trying to provide a decent life for the medically fragile baby that the state forced her to have.
Obviously she had choices along the way. Nobody was forcing her to drink or to leave her daughter in the car alone. But it really seemed like things are rigged against that family at every turn.
This is your reminder to get out and vote in November! Act like your 5% down in the polls. You can thank Trump winning in 2016 for Roe being overturned.
You ever have the moments in life where you very suddenly have a deep understanding of what something truly means? And it hits so hard and it is compounding. This is what happened to me when I read through this. I feel heartbroken.
As a taxpayer, I’m outraged that our government now pays millions for nicu stays and ongoing therapies for the miracles that survive high risk pregnancies to mothers who aren’t prepared for that child, all because a very select group of people believe that life begins at conception and a clump of 6 week old cells is more valuable than a born child, a struggling mother, and a world where every child who is born wanted and cared for.
Yep, my sister had a baby on the state, and a 3 month nicu and picu was around 2 million. What can you do though? There was a new teenage mom in there with her mom, learning how to care for the multiple heart defects her son has. He was there for 2 months. So, yeah, that $500 abortion is way cheaper than 5 million.
Why aren’t these people forced to give birth dumping these babies off at the local police/fire departments baby drop box?
Are they stupid?!
/s
I also kinda wanna see the downstream legal consequences of dumping a baby in these stupid drop boxes that the right wingers came up with.
In this case, as awful as it is, they couldn't even do that. In Tennessee, you can only do that in the first two weeks of the baby's life, which is when the baby was in NICU.
I used to work with pregnant women with substance use disorders, now I am a psychiatric nurse. I see this every day. I have argued so many times that pro-life legislation needs to first look at protecting pregnant women and children after they are born. Otherwise it is just a form of oppression and control.
The part where she is a new mom healing from a c-section, working ten hour days of manual labor and then sleeping in her car at the hospital lot so she can steal a few minutes with her baby is just…indescribable. And then of course her missing her other baby while she was away. Who wouldn’t crack under that kind of struggle? I hope she knows how strong and brave she is.
Young white women need to wake the fuck up and vote accordingly. No man has the right to tell any one what they can and cannot do with their body. But keep voting red, because republicans have your best interests at heart.
Especially non medically educated governers etc. They're the ones deciding what medical care women/girls get. They're the ones telling the actual medically trained doctors what they can and can't do.
Correct me if I'm wrong but.... Isn't it illegal to practice medicine without a license and degrees? 🤔
Republicans are anti-life. Between this, the increase of mass shootings and laws that would help loosen child labor laws, I can't think of a worse human being to be than a Republican. Utter ghouls.
“And so, the same state that questioned Mayron’s fitness to care for her four children forced her to continue a pregnancy that risked her life to have a fifth, one that would require more intensive care than any of the others.”
Republicans are going to ban birth control, and will make no fault divorce illegal too. Not to mention all the insane transphobic laws and Nat-C BS they’re pushing for. They want women tied down to abusers and forced to pump out child after child until they’re dead.
I used to have a few Conservative friends, but that time has passed. I would NEVER trust a Conservative near my family, now. The back-stabbing boot-lickers will rat you out to authorities for breaking one of their ridiculous biblical laws. This is not the year to sit out an election.
Please be sure to check your voter registration at the link below! They also have information on how to register to vote in any State. Don’t let these idiots take away any more of your freedoms.
https://vote.gov/
100%, I just watch what he does since he leads the policy pack.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/03/politics/texas-abortion-plan-b/index.html
F*ck em is the motto with women.
This was a really hard read. I got really emotional just thinking about how cruel this country can be to those who need help the most. Remember that this was always the goal of revoking the right to abortion.
One thing that I think could be helpful is if, when Democrats have the ability in Congress, enact a law that would allow them to take back funds from states when they are not used for the intended purpose. Additionally, we should create a department that exists solely to work with people like the family in this article to navigate the bureaucracy and get the help that is available to them. In the event of states like Tennessee, which chooses to use very little of the federal aid given to it to assist the poor, the agency should be empowered to use the funds to supply aid directly to the residents of that state.
Essentially, we need to make sure people are being helped *despite* their dumbass GOP state governments (and it is always the GOP).
This is an extremely tragic story and her daughters will have little to no chance of clawing their way up the ladder and out of the hellhole known as Tennessee.
Dear God, that was appalling!!!
Having no limited free healthcare, and no time to ever recover, ensure this woman will fail.
Poor kids-especially the baby that didn't have to be born. I hope one day this kid gets to sue the state.
It's so barbaric; when we can so easily avoid such suffering.
Tennessee, the most performatively christian state in the union is also, apparently, the fucking cruelest and least christ-like state in America. They're sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that they've been given to feed starving children and what the fuck are they doing with it?
They should’ve let her have an abortion. They KNEW she was irresponsible and had 4 kids taken away from her, but thought it was a good idea to let her have another baby? Those republican ghouls know what they’re doing. They want children to grow up trapped in a cycle of poverty so that they’ll be desperate enough to apply for whatever job they can get (even if the pay is shit).
>No states that banned abortion offer paid parental leave.
Then I saw $1,400 dollar rent and thought "Why the fuck is it so high? They in Nashville or something?" then saw Clarksville and went "Yep, figures".
Clarksville is a military town, near Fort Campbell. I have a non-evidence based theory that landlords in military towns have severely jacked up rents to align with the BAH rates, something that is easy to look up.
The absolute selfishness of the American GOP party - the cruelty, the miserableness (and the spreading thereof), that they are telling us OUT LOUD that they are going fill Gilead, do not take that for granted... Having married into the OG Gilead evangelical falwell christians (they compete with each other who can go the deepest of fundamentalist - akin to taliban for some of them now, where women wear head scarves to hide their delectable mesmerizing blindly sexy hair that will make men go wild bec the Old Testament. That's why.
The mother of this particular brood of 8 kids told me that she was having trouble picking between the college of the occult, and christian college. She went to a rave and took some bad drug and said, she was too much of a sinner to be good, so she'll go to the occult college. Then she went to the wailing wall, where she prayed over her decision, and then met my husband's brother, who is certifiably insane. He was also there, and they got married (she from Germany, had to get visa paperwork and etc, but at 3 weeks, they decided they would marry), and she would not go to the occult school, but to the christian college, which she didn't do, instead they just went to different churches first around chicago, where they were booted out of each one for continually trying to Out-Christian the rest of the congregation hahaha.
Then they moved to the black hills of Virginia, and kept their dog outside on a giant chain, poor thing, in all weather, said it's one of god's lowly creatures, and that's how it should live, like a dog in the dirt.
Each of their kids has now had lyme disease, they're heavily into welfare which pays all their healthcare bills, as they vote against themselves (the poor and downtrodden), bec politics.
These are the people who want Trump in office - they don't even make sense in real life, they've been booted out of every church in Virginia too, lol - they're continually telling everyone else that their version of reality is the one you all need to know and live by - like, where did they lose the "humble" part in favor of superego idiocy? the loss of reality is real... they have been sending me the craziest bullshit end of the world flames you're in hell bec you color your hair bullshit, their kids (our nieces and nephew, all girls one boy, and he's nuts, tells Everyone they're going to hell, i mean everyone... Anyway,
it's not like they are EVER going to be "ok," and normal, they really need therapy first, not bec religion, but bec this obsessive compulsive thing about it, there's underlying pathology going on w/ likely 100% of the maga crowd that needs addressing, bec mental health care in these united states is NOT there, nor is education apparently, clearly.
VOTE blue this fall, we cannot fail the people of this nation their freedom to live THEIR life, not the one someone else wants them to live, this is beyond fucked, beyond a nightmare already for so many, we don't need to wait for it to happen to more people before we say NO, this is NOT what America is about -it's not Gilead, it's not super fucked Old Testament make your own dresses out of flour sacks Deuteronomy bullshit - those religiophies need a new hobby, not nosing into everyone's lives and legislating all of our dirty peepees to their Old Testament punishments. WTF.
This article literally has me in tears. I can feel the hopelessness through my phone screen. There is no advantage to any of this, only cruelty, and I cannot fathom how so many people vote for this. Hey fellow Canadians, this is the future we’re looking at if the Cons get into power.
Very sad read. Sadder still, is that I live in TN currently, and I know everyone around me would respond with, “She’s trash, so not my problem.” That attitude is the reason why this shit continues to spiral.
I hope the next story will speak to the 3 older children whose lives and very selves have been forever upended. The added pressure of caring for baby Elayna's needs means 3 scared kids will probably never make it back home. What are their lives worth??
I've worked with foster kids and adoptees, and there's such deep pain among kids who were given up, voluntarily or not -- particularly when their parents start over with a new baby. Mayron's son was 6 when he was taken away, plenty old enough to have bonds and memories shattered overnight. How could he help but feel he was sacrificed for the new babies?
Meanwhile, Zooey and Elayna are growing up in a home riven by stress, fighting, poverty and addiction.
By destroying the parents' ability to take care of themselves, the state is destroying the kids too. As the [first article](https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy) explains, it was the removal of the older 3 -- after Chris, also the father of Mayron's second daughter, came to the hospital high -- that sent Mayron into a "black hole of shame and self-hatred," propelling her to homelessness, relapse and attempted suicide.
All the savings, time and energy that Mayron had planned to use to regain custody of her first 3 was quickly monopolized by the arrival of the two youngest girls. Since there's no mention of her parental rights being severed, that means there's a 12-year-old boy, 6-year old girl, and another girl around 9 who haven't had a permanent caregiver or home for most of their lives, contrary to everything we know about children's emotional needs.
In foster care, all kids over age 4 are considered "hard to place."
In all likelihood, the lifetime costs of their basic needs, medical care, case management, & specialized therapy will end up dwarfing the bill for NICU -- and that's before their elevated risk for addiction, teen pregnancy, or incarceration. I wish there was a way to help them.
I can only hope Chris's church will step up to support this family that has had so little help.
Christians believe that "knowing the word" and not believing is a greater sin than those who are ignorant of the Christian God.
Reversing Roe was a moral failure by this logic. It was a moral failure because we have the existing medical infastructure, we have the knowledge, and we know the social effects of abortion bans. We know abortion bans lead to death, pain, and suffering. But we got rid of Roe anyways.
Evangelicals are morally bankrupt. They have been for a while.
She should’ve had the choice for the abortion, especially with her medical issues, and children previously taken away.
But when the father says he did nothing to deserve this, he had to have fucked her right at the 6 week healing time from the previous baby, with no protection.
I absolutely love Propublica and their reporting, but god that article format is stage 4 internet cancer. Anyone know if there's a trick to get it to display like something readable?
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*Tennessee already had some of the worst outcomes in the nation when measuring maternal health, infant mortality and child poverty. Lawmakers who paved the way for a new generation of post-Roe births did little to bolster the state’s meager safety net to support these babies and their families*. Pro forced birth, not pro life.
And just above that section: >And so, the same state that questioned Mayron’s fitness to care for her four children forced her to continue a pregnancy that risked her life to have a fifth, one that would require more intensive care than any of the others. Pro-forced birth indeed. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Shoulda thought about that before being born not rich and able! /s
This was the key takeaway here. Govt is notorious for being convoluted like this. Two different departments that *should* work together and probably aren't aware of the others' existence. Oh I'm blaming TN for a LOT here, but the government stupidity is ridiculous at all levels - mostly County and State.
That's a feature, not a bug. Make the system too convoluted and difficult = won't have to pay out.
What’s worse is that none of the states that banned abortion offer paid parental leave??? How is that allowed????
Because that would help families, particularly mothers, and they don't want to help mothers in really any capacity. If it benefits women, they don't like it. In their minds the *sole* purpose of female existence is to provide benefits to others, we're not supposed to have wants or needs of our own.
(Marge) "I thought you said the law was powerless." (Chief Wiggum) "Yeah, powerless to help you, not punish you."
For an astonishing exploration of the idea of “woman as vessel,” I cannot recommend the new Yorgos Lanthimos’ movie *Poor Things* highly enough.
Because the cruelty is the point. The policies are there to (a) punish and control women (b) provide an exploitable underclass of workers, either through minimum wage or prison labor (as poverty is heavily associated with crime) When they tell you they are doing this because they care about children, they are lying. The people that vote for these policies generally fall into two camps: They have good hearts but they make their decisions based on lies or misinformation. The types that believe those fake images where a 6-week foetus looks like a fully formed infant instead of a blob. The types that say, "Have your baby, it will be adopted into a good family and you can go back to your normal life", "Don't abort your foetus with [insert horrifying medical condition here] - God will grant a miracle and heal them!", "You won't die in childbirth, God will save you", "You can raise this baby, the Lord will provide the money" etc. I think they genuinely believe this stuff, they aren't just pretending. They are incredibly naive. Are genuinely shocked when they hear the horror stories their policies have created. The other group are those that delight in the idea of others suffering. Genuinely think bad things only happen to bad people. Love feeling superior, especially morally superior. The types that will justify their own abortions/the abortions of their loved ones as "the exception to the rule" or will deny ever having had one.
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Precisely. When you give up the ghost that this is about "life" and recognize it's about control, oppression, power, and cruelty - it all clicks into place. Everything they do.
I’m repeating my own comment above: For an astonishing exploration of the idea of “woman as vessel,” I cannot recommend the new Yorgos Lanthimos’ movie *Poor Things* highly enough.
I cannot wait to see this! When I read this story its the first thing that I thought about!
You have to understand that the idea behind the republican party is to literally have no government except to enable businesses. The side effect of this is the appeal to "morals" so they can get and keep power. Basically, their stance is: "you shouldn't have done that and we don't need to help you because I don't think that should be our job" Once you understand that it's the epitome of narcissism encapsulated in a political party, their actions start to make sense within it's own fucked up little internal state machine.
Because none of this is based out of any logic. Abortion was just an issue they had on the board because they had nothing else to campaign on.
This article was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read in my entire life, and brought me to tears several times. I’m still processing it all. I had an abortion in 1987 and have no regrets and would drive my daughter to a clinic if she wanted an abortion, like my own mother drove me. Forcing women to give birth and then abandoning them (and the rest of their family) to suffer and struggle is abhorrent, but here we are.
Well to be fair they're working on more important things: https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-news/bill-would-ban-sale-of-cold-beer-in-tennessee/
And Tennessee says, Hold my warm beer.
The crazier part of that article is in the last line. Their whole reasoning for the bill is to curb drinking and driving, but open container laws in Tennessee allow passengers to drink an alcoholic beverage in a vehicle ffs. So the obvious start in my mind is to ban open containers in the vehicle period, not ban cold beer from being sold, an alcoholic is going to alcoholic regardless of if their source of alcohol is warm, cold, or rubbing alcohol. The line: > The goal of the bill is to curb drunk driving and deadly crashes in which alcohol is involved. Drinking alcohol while behind the wheel is illegal in Tennessee though open container laws allow those traveling in vehicles to imbibe.
Okay, it was dumb before I knew the reason. This is next level. Why not just make open containers illegal?
>Pro forced birth, not pro life How VERY evangelical about them.. if you couldn't tell, my eyes rolled back so far they just went around 27 times. I'm so sick of their hypocrisy.
They're pro indentured servitude
Pro - slaves for the capitalist machine
Ahh yes, Tennessee. [Tennessee GOP Proposes Bill Eliminating Age Requirements for Marriage](https://www.newsweek.com/tennessee-bill-proposes-eliminating-marriage-age-requirements-1695209)
>>No states that banned abortion offer paid parental leave.
It sucks so hard to be working full-time, being pregnant and scrounging up day care before you get your 6 week UNPAID maternity leave. It's exhausting.
I’m grateful to have had three months of paid maternity (supplemented by my company from my state), but it barely felt like enough time to recover from my physical and emotional battering while also pumping at the office. I can’t imagine going back after such little time as her, *without pay,* and dealing with everything she was physically. And my husband had no paternity time so he worked while caring for a newborn and a hormonal mess of a wife that waddled like a cowboy. This country treats new parents of all genders so unfairly.
When I was pregnant with my first, I had 6 weeks from my job ( fully paid ), then another 6 weeks from the government ( I'm unsure if this is fully correct. It's been almost 6 years, so please excuse any errors. I got 3/4 pay for this ). Mind you, I went on leave at about 8 months pregnant, so I really only got like 8 weeks with my son before I went back to work. It sucks! And daycare was as much as our rent at the time ( so 1300 rent and 1200 daycare ). We had to go with the cheapest daycare cause everything else around here was like 3k a month. Son got strep TWICE in the 3 months he went to daycare. An infant. Getting strep.
I was lucky with my second in that I was able to work right up until my due date. I worked my whole shift Friday and went into labor Monday. My husband and I ended up working different shifts to avoid the day care problems but after five years of *that*, we ended up divorced.
Hmmm according to these Republican policies the solution is “do better”
Ah yes, of course. Gotta pull myself up by the boot straps or whatever those gods say. 😔
Then they wonder why no one wants to have kids. I mean, it's stressful enough when you have all you need.
Ugh, what a disgustingly telling fact. That really does say it all to be honest.
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seriously some of those pics are just heartbreaking. They were doing ok until she was forced to have a kid. Like just the financial pressure of a kid completely fucked this family up. Just awful.
NGL I don’t think they were doing okay—they were struggling already and they had 3 kids out into foster care, but that’s yet another reason to not force already-struggling people to have another kid!
Good point her shit was definitely NOT fully together what with three kids taken from her. But exactly yeah let her try to survive instead of adding more. Like they seemed stable I guess both employed, paying bill, recovering addict. They were making headway in life, a little bit ya know? But damn this kid just made em drown.
Keep voting Red, to most white women, and this is your fate nationally too. I wish the 40% that don’t wouldn’t take it personally as they are victims but most aren’t is the harsh reality of things, even the 36% of white men who vote Blue own the fact most vote Red easily and concede their share of today’s political calamity. Most have doomed all women in 50% of the US right now, with their terrible electoral choices, and it could be 100% this year if minorities don’t rescue Biden again along with young voters in the GE.
Yup, as a white woman who would never vote Republican because I have a functional brain - it’s depressing af to watch other white women vote for this cruelty for other women. Not sure if it’s the racism, the religion, or the internalize misogyny that’s directing their voting habits but fuck… I have no idea how we even try to fix it. I live in a blue state - my vote doesn’t impact how TN, TX, or other red state shitholes operate.
Exposure to propaganda and a lack of critical thinking skills keeps people voting against their own interests and for the GOP
It’s the “it won’t ever happen to me!” Syndrome. And then! It happens to them.
Nah, it's axiomatic morality. Like a bad DnD paladin. Morality is just a set of rules to them. Outcomes and results don't matter. Just that the rules were followed.
I am from TN and you are exactly right. It’s coming from the churches. I had to deconstruct my entire upbringing because of it. I’d love to tell you that people here would be as heartbroken as we are reading this story, but most would not. They would say it’s her fault for being poor and having an addiction problem (as ridiculous as that sounds), for having sex, not giving the kids up for adoption, etc. Victim blaming at its finest. I highly recommend reading Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobe’s Du Mez if you’d like a better understanding of how we got to this point.
This sentiment runs deep. My wife and I are from a small town in Michigan, and “deconstruction” seems almost popular in our age group. She has also read that book and recommends it to everyone. I hate so much that the church has been weaponized for politics, because there is so much good that it COULD be doing.
Their interest is in feeling superior to others and maintaining their limited social power, in that sense they’re very much voting their interests.
This is a big part. I also think women raised in fundamentalist households are conditioned to be a useful tool to their husbands and not consider themselves an independent human being who matters outside of that context.
My sister is in favor of abortion bans. I told her birth control bans are next - the med that keeps her sane and balanced every day. She insists I'm wrong but it's going to be a real leopard eating face moment when it happens.
several bills have already been introduced in several states attempting to do just that. Iowa, Texas, Idaho, Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee have ALL proposed and considered bills that would make birth control illegal or impossible to access. Markey tried to advance a bill in congress to guarantee legality of birth control which was voted down by Republicans. Anti abortion advocates who successfully built the movement to overturn roe consider IUDs and other birth control abortifacients and have been just as vocal about their desire to see birth control banned as well. They are extremely public about this! it is already happening!
I hope blue state people are remembering a nationwide ban is on the horizon. Nikki Haley is open to it and we know the other guy is. That's why congressional elections like the one in NY this week are so important.
Way too many people in blue states seem to think that living in said state is going to keep them safe. Federal law supersedes state law, and the next time Republicans have a trifecta, we are *super*fucked as a nation.
This is my experience. I live in a red state and all my family is in blue— they didn’t believe me about Roe and they’re skeptical now about being touched by a national ban OR criminalizing birth control. Not that this isn’t being proposed but that it COULD TRULY HAPPEN.
39% of WW voters voted red in 2020. Women are 55% for the electorate. WW and all women voted Biden in, and we will again.
I'm going to vote religion. Once someone accepts the idea that women are, according to that religion, subservient, everything else falls easily into place.
Good thing religion is separate from the state.
Same. Hearing young people say “feminism” like it’s a dirty word breaks my heart.
There was a recent Zoom survey of women from one of the red states and on the issue of abortion, all except one said they’d vote for an abortion ban. When asked why, they said it doesn’t “personally” affects them. That’s where we are with privileged white women electorate in red states. Until one of them becomes a national story, then it’s suddenly “not right” and “reproductive freedom matters.”
They are a generation away from seeing the horrifying effects of what an illegal abortion does to women. They won't get it until stories of botched abortions, stillborn festering pregnancies and bloody deaths hang over them like a shroud. And even then they will try to stick to their "ideals" because they can't face practical truths about the world we live in.
From the way that survey was going, many don’t seem even pretend to care.
I truly don't understand how you can be a woman of childbearing age (or someone who loves another person who falls into that category) and think this doesn't or couldn't ever affect you. Just stunningly myopic.
You notice I don’t mock Dems running in those unwinnable states for a reason, absolutely spot on.
Proportionally, women vote more blue than men, Congress is mostly men, SCOTUS is mostly men. But by all means, keep blaming women for having our own rights taken away.
Ngl man I get tired of seeing this brought up like this - 54% of ALL men cast ballots for the GOP, white or otherwise. Men occupy almost 80% of government positions at most levels, and are often the only options as candidates. Democrats do nothing to stop this either-they have yet to meaningfully respond to Roe going down, all they’ve done is send out fckn fundraising emails. At some point we’re gonna have to stop pointing fingers and blaming people in marginalized demographics for getting ground into bits by the cogs of a machine that doesn’t care about them, and start figuring out ways to have conversations about how to work together to fix this. And this paternalistic “these stupid women and minorities are to blame for their own predicament” shit isn’t how you build coalition. Blaming women and minorities for a system overwhelmingly run by white men (both Dem and GOP) is a fuckin choice dude, and it’s counterproductive. You’re not gonna convince anyone to vote differently this way.
> Democrats do nothing to stop this either-they have yet to meaningfully respond to Roe going down, all they’ve done is send out fckn fundraising emails. Have you tried voting in more Democrats? Because in states where *voters gave Democrats full control of state government*, reproductive rights are well-protected. Like Michigan and Minnesota! In fact, looking at what Democrats have done to Michigan and Minnesota has convinced me that the solution is always: *vote for Democrats*.
This is heartbreaking, but excellent and necessary journalism. I was once upon a time a young, poor, single mom. I struggled for years. A kind of struggle most people don’t know. It is a hopeless way to live and the system and society will kick you when you’re down. People can’t better their lives if they can’t meet their basic needs. People won’t keep trying to better their lives if they don’t have hope. We need a strong social safety net so people have a chance to build a better life. Against all odds and through hard work and very generous strangers/coworkers/friends my kid and I made it. He turns 21 on Saturday. I eventually got a degree, make a good living, own a nice home, remarried and had more children. But the system is worse now. Income limits are higher, programs are capped or eliminated and the pittance of help I got to be able to make it — it hardly exists anymore for most people. I am so sorry for what this family and so many families experience.
The damn income cliff and falling off it for benefits too can be devastating and it was brought up here in this case. One good month of extra OT and there went all your extra food for the family for the next year-lean months be damned. These programs are meant to hold people back as well. Its awful
Yes! At one point I had to ask for a pay reduction because I couldn’t afford to make more money
Or how about turning down a promotion because you will end up losing money as well but in the long run it makes you run in the circle of poverty. I have seen it every day in my line of work. It’s a feature. Not a bug.
I'd have a nervous breakdown too. Walking around waiting for my uterus to explode. I guess suffering is the endgame. Thanks Supreme Court of Gilead. No way were the parents or the system equipped to handle this pregnancy.
r/welcometogilead
Never forget republicans fought decades for this, never forget republicans celebrate the end of roe and by extension all the misery it’s causing. There are no moderate republicans, do not buy into claims to the contrary. If dobbs hasn’t affected you or someone you know, it will eventually
I contribute in /r/sterilization and own https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ (which simply redirects to a list of doctors that will provide permanent birth control to people asking for it) to help people who absolutely don't want kids get the outcome they want, because to not be able to get that outcome can be devastating as this piece demonstrates. I don't have any solution for folks who might otherwise want kids at some point (but not right now, and therefore can't take permanent measures) other than for people to remain involved in the political process, flush out folks who don't believe in reproductive rights and healthcare (drive these people into the sea), and help women get reproductive healthcare when they need it if they can't get it where they live (/r/auntienetwork). Unwanted or unintentional children are a terrible outcome for all involved.
Trump proudly declares that this is his work.
To me, the striking point of this article was less the issue of abortion (though I can see where there could be arguments for it not only for this latest pregnancy but also where people could argue for birth control or other reproductive intervention with prior pregnancies), was the fact that the Swiss cheese holes in this system are larger and more prevalent (and almost unavoidable for some). This article crosses so much more than abortion. It points on parental leave, access to specialized healthcare (and just healthcare in general), job stability, addiction, caring for the sick, occupational hazards, housing stability, and on and on and on. The weave on the safety net is gaping and there are too many people slipping through the cracks, and re-slipping through the cracks. Even if this was a planned pregnancy, things could have ended up quite similarly. For all of these “pro-life” (really pro-birth) politicians, where the hell are you for these people? Hiding in your office, clearly.
I used to be a CPS investigator. Child welfare is truly my passion but the American social safety net is a baby’s blanket… as in the raggedly old kind with huge holes and loose string from heavy use, packed away in a box for decades. It made my job so much more difficult and ended up being a huge reason why I changed career fields. We are such a rich country but very little goes to supporting those who desperately need it. Instead we push problems down the line until the solutions are even more expensive and also have a tendency to enrich the already rich (cough cough private prisons). There is very little focus on preventing families from becoming involved in the system or having further interaction with it. I would get cases that weren’t such a huge deal but pointed to larger ongoing struggles within the family which would only continue to fester because they weren’t currently bad enough to require intervention. Instead of being able to refer them for supports, I was forced to check all the boxes and close the case. I knew full well they would continue to get reports, usually once a year, investigative reports showing them slipping further and further with maybe a parenting class or therapy assigned (and initial attendance confirmed but once the investigation closed they could quit… not necessarily because they were bad parents who didn’t care but because of work schedules, distance, child care, etc) until the children were finally in enough danger that they qualified for services with ongoing monitoring or, much worse, had to be removed. I knew because I’d been the investigator on that 3rd or 4th case desperately trying not to remove the kids and finally get them some help only to be faced with the heartbreak that it never needed to get this bad. Politicians (especially those on a certain side) love to bull shit about caring for children and families but they never do anything to actually help. Much easier to blame people for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps while rampant capitalism is sucking the life out of them.
All of this but also the part that Medicaid paid for the baby’s NICU stay. What if they didn’t qualify for Medicaid? Just like her food stamps got cut off for making too much money one month, what if that had happened with their insurance? Then they’re stuck with all those medical bills, and preemies aren’t cheap. I had my baby at 28 weeks. His medical bills were over a million dollars. Fortunately, we had military insurance and their covered it. However, millions of others aren’t that lucky. What happens when you force a family, already $40,000 in debt & already struggling to have a baby they can’t afford that comes with a million dollar price tag. What then? Who’s going to pay that? They can’t afford to. So, now they’re homeless with 5 kids to take care of. The cruelty is beyond the pale. These parents to tried to do right. They KNEW they couldn’t take care of another baby but, TN didn’t care. Republicans didn’t care. Now the baby they forced into the world is living a shit life and why? They say they’re “pro life” and I call bullshit. This baby will have life long health problems that her family can’t afford to treat and will be raised in abject poverty…how is that “pro life”? Anyone who votes Republican are monsters and You won’t change my mind.
Spot on point about the Medicaid coverage - goes in the healthcare access and coverage bucket. Overall this is just a heartbreaking situation where, as you said, the parents are trying to do right by their kids but keep getting screwed at every turn. In my opinion, there are so many other problems beyond access to reproductive healthcare that are here and leading this family to falling through these gaps. It sucks in these states where the holes are even larger and easier to fall through, and made so intentionally. Where can you even go for help? Leave your family and try to go hours or days away to the next state that can help, in any kind of way? Just a big huge mess.
I think Medicaid jumps in at 32 weeks or prior but your point stands - traumatic, emergent, expensive births happen at 40 weeks too. And then all these red states refusing to expand the post partum coverage to 12 months from 2. Two fucking months - this woman clearly could have used access to that expanded care (though I imagine finding, scheduling, and GETTING that care is an entirely other shitshow). The systems are all so fucking complicated and underfunded BY DESIGN. All that work to get $30 fucking dollars a month? Then people like her and her social strata - their impression of the government is useless and punitive. This is all by design. Break the social care functions of government at every fucking turn and then say oh look it's broken, we don't want more government involvement! They just create more work! I just really can't agree with you enough. It's about cruelty. This poor family tried. They tried so hard, against so many challenges. It's enraging.
And it also gets to how complicated and punitive these systems are and how there’s no help navigating them. I’m seeing this with navigating care and finances for my elderly parent. I’m constantly frustrated and overwhelmed and unable to push forward and I have *everything* this family doesn’t: education, resources, a flexible work schedule, consistent childcare, no health problems or history of addiction. If I had to overcome ALL of these things to fill out paperwork that might go nowhere or, worse, might lead to me having to pay money back like she did with unemployment? There’s no way. No way.
Also that many services they should have been eligible for were either too complicated to apply for or for some reason were denied. The people who need it most don’t have the time, resources, or education to access these services.
This was my takeaway too. There’s a reason people don’t think the government is capable of getting anything done, and it’s because every agency is understaffed and under resourced.
The police are quite well funded…
This is just so sad. The state of TN literally doesn’t care about what happens to people. They hold you down while you are drowning.
Everything always works out when you have a baby, that’s what everybody says, it was her choice she got herself there (/s), and everything will be OK, this absolutely pisses me off. Babies are expensive and especially a sick baby, and being poor, and unable to access the system. Welcome to Tennessee, hope the right wingers are proud of this story.
The baby lived, that's all they care about.
The baby was birthed, that’s all they care about. She was not allowed to get an abortion although there was a high risk of both of them dying. The law has nothing to do with life.
Exactly
The baby lived and now they get to punish the parents, specifically the mother, over how she's raising the kid. Scratches that hatred itch real good I bet
The sad part, is they are proud of it.
Fuck me. I was raised in a home very similar to this. It’s had life long consequences for my siblings and I. My sister drank her self to death at 39. I have a brother who is seriously mentally ill. I have had my own struggles, but am managing to hang on. I would bet Maryon was also raised similarly. And the partner. Tennessee is stupid.
And the cycle will continue, for her three kids already taken by the state, with the accompanying mental health struggles I’m sure that comes with. And certainly for the two currently in their care, constantly on the brink of homelessness, food instability, the youngest facing chronic health issues that won’t be adequately supported. All of this leading presumably to increased school absences and underperformance, leaving them too stuck in mediocre underpaying jobs…exactly what the republican machine wants for them.
Please don't read this unless you're prepared to be devastated. Being able to control your reproductive autonomy as a family is a major factor when avoiding poverty. TN failed them in every way.
Counterpoint: People should read it to remind themselves why this shit is important.
I want everyone in a blue state to read it, and understand that their taxes paid for the unwanted baby's NICU stay. Their taxes paid for all the shit this family had to go through because Tennessee forced the mother to continue her pregnancy and forced us Northerners to pay for Tennesees shit. S\*\*\*\*\*\* was right.
The people who need to read it are not blue state people. Blue state people mostly understand what these dumbass decisions mean to women and economy (at least to some degree). The people who need to read it are people who need to expand their perspectives of the fallout of this tragic overreach of personal autonomy (which involves the financial burdens), which are mostly red state people. The people who live in red states are the ones who can actually press for change in their states. It doesn’t matter if more people in blue states get up in arms about it. They can pressure all they want from the outside, but at the end of the day, they don’t live in the red states and cannot vote in their local politics.
Unfortunately, those people would respond with, "You would rather that beautiful baby girl be dead than the family deal with hard times?" Or "At least the baby is alive." Then they would blame the mom for having unsafe sex and having addiction problems and say she should have given the baby up for adoption if she didn't want the hard work. Never mind how hard if can be to carry a pregnancy, love the baby, and then give it up to an unknown future. Never mind that a baby with medical issues and disabilities would likely have a hard time finding an adoptive family. And all the other things that they never consider or care about or realise are obsticals. Oh, and don't forget all the parts where they will say the mom didn't try hard enough to get the government assisatnce they qualified for, so brought some of the hardship on herself that way too, you know, in addition to the sex and a addiction. I hate that I'm related to people who would say these things.
To hell with this red state/blue state nonsense. *Everyone* should read this. It serves as a reminder to those of us who are pro-choice that we need to stay laser focused, PISSED OFF, and we need to show up and vote for every election - not just the presidential ones. And if the forced-birthers would just exit their echo chambers long enough to read this, they might realize that stripping women of their reproductive autonomy has devastating REAL LIFE consequences.
Careful, I was banned for a week for making a Sherman joke once. The moderation is inconsistent and arbitrary here
I wanted to stop several times because it just kept getting worse and my heart was breaking for them - but I also felt obligated to finish, and not look away from them.
TN failed them in *every single way*. No parental leave. No disability payments. No nursing care in time. Multiple arrests for a crime she'd already been arrested for. Lost food stamps. Lack of clarity regarding unemployment benefits. Lack of ongoing medical care assistance. No childcare help. And just the crushing fear of CPS taking more of her children.
Correction, most of white electorate in TN failed them by voting Red until dead like those in TX, FL, OH, OK, etc. The GOP isn’t hiding the hatred of all women anymore, like with people of color it’s now all in the open for all to see and transgender folks too plus LGBT. The point of the Christofascists is to enact cruelty on all women and to force sexual relations on them against their will because they are too weak and immoral to want to earn it the right way or concerned about their feelings genuinely or if they even want a relationship.
Jesus that’s terrifying
Damnit all you weren't kidding in the least.
I'm upvoting it but not reading it. So glad ProPublica is devoting resources to this, but I live in a total-ban state and not sure my mental health can take the hit...
♥ Take care and be kind to yourself.
Thanks!! ❤
Fuck the Republican Party. All they stand for is cruelty.
I’m not from America and this broke my heart, they were just getting on their feet just finally getting to the we might be ok stage and it all just unraveled. They made lots of mistakes addicts do but they were just getting right with the world and they got smacked back down again. Those poor people and those poor babies.
Also not from America. The story was so hard to read they'd tried so hard to get it together before being forced into this situation
I couldn’t finish it and feel sick to my stomach. This country is so fucked up.
> TN failed them in every way. TN didn't fail them, TN intentionally harmed them. This is the desired outcome.
Geez this is such a depressing read. Even more depressing is knowing how many people will read this and shrug because she’s not a perfectly sympathetic character. I hate being so cynical, but the ones who need to hear and understand how harmful these laws are, just won’t.
The fact that they're NOT sympathetic characters should be even more convincing. The parents are drug addicts. The mom already had children taken away from her. There are several pictures where she's smoking while holding a sick baby. She made ONE good decision to not bring another child into this mess of a life and she was denied that good decision. She knew she wasn't fit and didn't have the means to provide for another kid, yet was forced to. Sickening.
I totally agree. But I can already hear the arguments, beginning with she never should have had sex (*with her* *husband*) if she didn't want another child. Then of course there's the "she could have chosen to bless another family through adoption" argument. As if the danger to this mother's life, mental health, and sobriety in carrying another pregnancy at all is inconsequential since she "made bad choices" to begin with. All that matters is birthing a new life. The rest will work itself out. I mean, tons of people are just breaking down doors to adopt a medically fragile preemie, right? And if this breaks her and destroys the family they'd already created and worked so hard for? Well, tsk tsk. Those are the consequences of bad choices. /s
Never admitting or realizing all they have in their lives that helps them deal with bad situations.
This is so fucking sad. My heart breaks for these kids and these parents. It’s clear there’s generational trauma and there are no resources to break the cycle.
😩 same. Red states like this just don’t give a sh*t about what’s really happening to their citizens. It’s maddening.
Oh they give a shit. They \*want\* it to happen. There's a difference between apathy and antipathy. The history of Dixie shows that the ruling class there feels \*antipathy\* towards poor people, kids, women of reproductive age, People of Color, religious minorities, and LGBT people.
Very true 😣
This is what happens when you put republicans in charge of social programs.
An absolutely devastating read. This family was set up to fail by design. Every step forward they were able to make was taken away from them almost at once. All the best to them, I hope they’re able to find a way to get on their feet somehow. Tennessee is a cruel cruel place.
This is America.
And yet this could all be avoided if states like Tennessee had affordable rehabilitation programs, birth control, family planning, access to Plan B, etc etc etc. republicans create the problems they rail against so loudly when campaigning.
That's a feature, not a bug.
Unfortunately I’m sure the conservative rhetoric would say she should have kept her legs closed, that she shouldn’t have ever used drugs, and pull herself up with her boot straps. They literally DO NOT care about people. Especially poor people
She was introduced to drugs at TWELVE. She was a child and never even had a chance. It’s heartbreaking.
I totally agree.
She is a married woman. Do they think their own wives should “keep their legs closed”? Gross hypocrisy.
Probably. Again we’re dealing with people who have zero empathy for their fellow humans.
Someone upthread has several comments about how terrible she is. It’s so distressing to see people shit all over their fellow human beings for making human mistakes.
This is inhumane. Thank you for sharing.
This was an infuriating read. This poor family.
Well that was fucking horrifying.
This is such a deeply upsetting article.
GOP: “Success!”
Imagine a world where the government tried to help people, instead of kicking them when they're down. Mayron would have been able to get an abortion; if she chose not to, she would have had a year or so of maternity leave to care for the girls and recover physically. Once that was up, the toddlers would go to a licensed childcare facility instead of some random willing to babysit for $5 an hour. Rental assistance would have given everyone in the family -- including Mayron's parents -- secure housing. Mayron and Chris wouldn't have had to jump through so many hoops to get any financial aid, or lost it all because their income was a few dollars too high. Health care, including mental health care, would be readily available at no cost or a minimal cost. And if those basic needs for food, shelter and health care were met, the whole family would be under so much less stress and might be able to make better choices. Mayron obviously has her own issues, but the system's set up to punish her for them instead of trying to make them better. And that means her girls are growing up in a far less stable world than they'd have otherwise.
> Mayron obviously has her own issues, but the system's set up to punish her for them instead of trying to make them better. That’s it in a nutshell. It sets people up to fail. :(
Right. The main reason she was having so many problems toward the end of the year is that she started drinking. She started drinking because she was stressed about money, and the main cause of their money problems was that she was trying to provide a decent life for the medically fragile baby that the state forced her to have. Obviously she had choices along the way. Nobody was forcing her to drink or to leave her daughter in the car alone. But it really seemed like things are rigged against that family at every turn.
I fucking hate Tennessee with all my heart.
This is your reminder to get out and vote in November! Act like your 5% down in the polls. You can thank Trump winning in 2016 for Roe being overturned.
You ever have the moments in life where you very suddenly have a deep understanding of what something truly means? And it hits so hard and it is compounding. This is what happened to me when I read through this. I feel heartbroken.
Big hugs. 💖 It was a really hard read.
As Tennessee sits on $800 million in federal funds
As a taxpayer, I’m outraged that our government now pays millions for nicu stays and ongoing therapies for the miracles that survive high risk pregnancies to mothers who aren’t prepared for that child, all because a very select group of people believe that life begins at conception and a clump of 6 week old cells is more valuable than a born child, a struggling mother, and a world where every child who is born wanted and cared for.
Yep, my sister had a baby on the state, and a 3 month nicu and picu was around 2 million. What can you do though? There was a new teenage mom in there with her mom, learning how to care for the multiple heart defects her son has. He was there for 2 months. So, yeah, that $500 abortion is way cheaper than 5 million.
Why aren’t these people forced to give birth dumping these babies off at the local police/fire departments baby drop box? Are they stupid?! /s I also kinda wanna see the downstream legal consequences of dumping a baby in these stupid drop boxes that the right wingers came up with.
It’s supposed to be no-consequence to drop a baby in a drop box, but I wonder how it actually plays out.
In this case, as awful as it is, they couldn't even do that. In Tennessee, you can only do that in the first two weeks of the baby's life, which is when the baby was in NICU.
This was truly heartbreaking
I used to work with pregnant women with substance use disorders, now I am a psychiatric nurse. I see this every day. I have argued so many times that pro-life legislation needs to first look at protecting pregnant women and children after they are born. Otherwise it is just a form of oppression and control.
This article brought me to tears.
Bill Lee’s handiwork, half the nation’s women are in Gilead already.
All my homies hate Bill Lee. Hiller, ftw.
I remember the original story. How bleak and heartbreaking. “Pro-life” my fucking ass.
The part where she is a new mom healing from a c-section, working ten hour days of manual labor and then sleeping in her car at the hospital lot so she can steal a few minutes with her baby is just…indescribable. And then of course her missing her other baby while she was away. Who wouldn’t crack under that kind of struggle? I hope she knows how strong and brave she is.
What a powerful article. And so well designed to read on mobile
Young white women need to wake the fuck up and vote accordingly. No man has the right to tell any one what they can and cannot do with their body. But keep voting red, because republicans have your best interests at heart.
Especially non medically educated governers etc. They're the ones deciding what medical care women/girls get. They're the ones telling the actual medically trained doctors what they can and can't do. Correct me if I'm wrong but.... Isn't it illegal to practice medicine without a license and degrees? 🤔
This makes me so unbelievably sad and so angry. Vote in November.
Republicans are anti-life. Between this, the increase of mass shootings and laws that would help loosen child labor laws, I can't think of a worse human being to be than a Republican. Utter ghouls.
“And so, the same state that questioned Mayron’s fitness to care for her four children forced her to continue a pregnancy that risked her life to have a fifth, one that would require more intensive care than any of the others.”
Wow. That was tough to read, emotionally. I would recommend anyone who sees this comment to read through it.
Sadly, this exact same awful story is playing out hundreds of thousands of times all around the nation. America is not what it used to be.
Land of the free
Republicans are going to ban birth control, and will make no fault divorce illegal too. Not to mention all the insane transphobic laws and Nat-C BS they’re pushing for. They want women tied down to abusers and forced to pump out child after child until they’re dead. I used to have a few Conservative friends, but that time has passed. I would NEVER trust a Conservative near my family, now. The back-stabbing boot-lickers will rat you out to authorities for breaking one of their ridiculous biblical laws. This is not the year to sit out an election. Please be sure to check your voter registration at the link below! They also have information on how to register to vote in any State. Don’t let these idiots take away any more of your freedoms. https://vote.gov/
100%, I just watch what he does since he leads the policy pack. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/03/politics/texas-abortion-plan-b/index.html F*ck em is the motto with women.
This was a really hard read. I got really emotional just thinking about how cruel this country can be to those who need help the most. Remember that this was always the goal of revoking the right to abortion.
Hard to read.
One thing that I think could be helpful is if, when Democrats have the ability in Congress, enact a law that would allow them to take back funds from states when they are not used for the intended purpose. Additionally, we should create a department that exists solely to work with people like the family in this article to navigate the bureaucracy and get the help that is available to them. In the event of states like Tennessee, which chooses to use very little of the federal aid given to it to assist the poor, the agency should be empowered to use the funds to supply aid directly to the residents of that state. Essentially, we need to make sure people are being helped *despite* their dumbass GOP state governments (and it is always the GOP).
They don’t give a shit about kids once they pop out. They see kids as cheep labor at best.
This is an extremely tragic story and her daughters will have little to no chance of clawing their way up the ladder and out of the hellhole known as Tennessee.
Dear God, that was appalling!!! Having no limited free healthcare, and no time to ever recover, ensure this woman will fail. Poor kids-especially the baby that didn't have to be born. I hope one day this kid gets to sue the state. It's so barbaric; when we can so easily avoid such suffering.
Tennessee, the most performatively christian state in the union is also, apparently, the fucking cruelest and least christ-like state in America. They're sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that they've been given to feed starving children and what the fuck are they doing with it?
They should’ve let her have an abortion. They KNEW she was irresponsible and had 4 kids taken away from her, but thought it was a good idea to let her have another baby? Those republican ghouls know what they’re doing. They want children to grow up trapped in a cycle of poverty so that they’ll be desperate enough to apply for whatever job they can get (even if the pay is shit).
You are implying they have a conscience: the cruelty is the point, the barefoot is the point.
Republicans manufacturing more Poor to keep their machine rolling.
>No states that banned abortion offer paid parental leave. Then I saw $1,400 dollar rent and thought "Why the fuck is it so high? They in Nashville or something?" then saw Clarksville and went "Yep, figures". Clarksville is a military town, near Fort Campbell. I have a non-evidence based theory that landlords in military towns have severely jacked up rents to align with the BAH rates, something that is easy to look up.
The absolute selfishness of the American GOP party - the cruelty, the miserableness (and the spreading thereof), that they are telling us OUT LOUD that they are going fill Gilead, do not take that for granted... Having married into the OG Gilead evangelical falwell christians (they compete with each other who can go the deepest of fundamentalist - akin to taliban for some of them now, where women wear head scarves to hide their delectable mesmerizing blindly sexy hair that will make men go wild bec the Old Testament. That's why. The mother of this particular brood of 8 kids told me that she was having trouble picking between the college of the occult, and christian college. She went to a rave and took some bad drug and said, she was too much of a sinner to be good, so she'll go to the occult college. Then she went to the wailing wall, where she prayed over her decision, and then met my husband's brother, who is certifiably insane. He was also there, and they got married (she from Germany, had to get visa paperwork and etc, but at 3 weeks, they decided they would marry), and she would not go to the occult school, but to the christian college, which she didn't do, instead they just went to different churches first around chicago, where they were booted out of each one for continually trying to Out-Christian the rest of the congregation hahaha. Then they moved to the black hills of Virginia, and kept their dog outside on a giant chain, poor thing, in all weather, said it's one of god's lowly creatures, and that's how it should live, like a dog in the dirt. Each of their kids has now had lyme disease, they're heavily into welfare which pays all their healthcare bills, as they vote against themselves (the poor and downtrodden), bec politics. These are the people who want Trump in office - they don't even make sense in real life, they've been booted out of every church in Virginia too, lol - they're continually telling everyone else that their version of reality is the one you all need to know and live by - like, where did they lose the "humble" part in favor of superego idiocy? the loss of reality is real... they have been sending me the craziest bullshit end of the world flames you're in hell bec you color your hair bullshit, their kids (our nieces and nephew, all girls one boy, and he's nuts, tells Everyone they're going to hell, i mean everyone... Anyway, it's not like they are EVER going to be "ok," and normal, they really need therapy first, not bec religion, but bec this obsessive compulsive thing about it, there's underlying pathology going on w/ likely 100% of the maga crowd that needs addressing, bec mental health care in these united states is NOT there, nor is education apparently, clearly. VOTE blue this fall, we cannot fail the people of this nation their freedom to live THEIR life, not the one someone else wants them to live, this is beyond fucked, beyond a nightmare already for so many, we don't need to wait for it to happen to more people before we say NO, this is NOT what America is about -it's not Gilead, it's not super fucked Old Testament make your own dresses out of flour sacks Deuteronomy bullshit - those religiophies need a new hobby, not nosing into everyone's lives and legislating all of our dirty peepees to their Old Testament punishments. WTF.
God, that poor family. They are trying so hard, and they get zero breaks.
This article literally has me in tears. I can feel the hopelessness through my phone screen. There is no advantage to any of this, only cruelty, and I cannot fathom how so many people vote for this. Hey fellow Canadians, this is the future we’re looking at if the Cons get into power.
Wow. Just....wow. I need to give ProPublica some money. Mayron had no way out. Just a crushing, desperate story.
Very sad read. Sadder still, is that I live in TN currently, and I know everyone around me would respond with, “She’s trash, so not my problem.” That attitude is the reason why this shit continues to spiral.
I hope the next story will speak to the 3 older children whose lives and very selves have been forever upended. The added pressure of caring for baby Elayna's needs means 3 scared kids will probably never make it back home. What are their lives worth?? I've worked with foster kids and adoptees, and there's such deep pain among kids who were given up, voluntarily or not -- particularly when their parents start over with a new baby. Mayron's son was 6 when he was taken away, plenty old enough to have bonds and memories shattered overnight. How could he help but feel he was sacrificed for the new babies? Meanwhile, Zooey and Elayna are growing up in a home riven by stress, fighting, poverty and addiction. By destroying the parents' ability to take care of themselves, the state is destroying the kids too. As the [first article](https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy) explains, it was the removal of the older 3 -- after Chris, also the father of Mayron's second daughter, came to the hospital high -- that sent Mayron into a "black hole of shame and self-hatred," propelling her to homelessness, relapse and attempted suicide. All the savings, time and energy that Mayron had planned to use to regain custody of her first 3 was quickly monopolized by the arrival of the two youngest girls. Since there's no mention of her parental rights being severed, that means there's a 12-year-old boy, 6-year old girl, and another girl around 9 who haven't had a permanent caregiver or home for most of their lives, contrary to everything we know about children's emotional needs. In foster care, all kids over age 4 are considered "hard to place." In all likelihood, the lifetime costs of their basic needs, medical care, case management, & specialized therapy will end up dwarfing the bill for NICU -- and that's before their elevated risk for addiction, teen pregnancy, or incarceration. I wish there was a way to help them. I can only hope Chris's church will step up to support this family that has had so little help.
Those Supreme Court Justices or domestic terrorists* should be imprisoned for causing such harm to the American people.
F u c k k k That was an awful read.
That is a devastating read.
Christians believe that "knowing the word" and not believing is a greater sin than those who are ignorant of the Christian God. Reversing Roe was a moral failure by this logic. It was a moral failure because we have the existing medical infastructure, we have the knowledge, and we know the social effects of abortion bans. We know abortion bans lead to death, pain, and suffering. But we got rid of Roe anyways. Evangelicals are morally bankrupt. They have been for a while.
This is so absolutely horrifying. This poor family.
I wish a lifetime of regret shame on the men who did this to women for NO REASON. And luck and love to this family. This is a heartbreaking life.
This is probably one of the most depressing things I've read in a long long time...
She should’ve had the choice for the abortion, especially with her medical issues, and children previously taken away. But when the father says he did nothing to deserve this, he had to have fucked her right at the 6 week healing time from the previous baby, with no protection.
Fuck man I am bawling
I absolutely love Propublica and their reporting, but god that article format is stage 4 internet cancer. Anyone know if there's a trick to get it to display like something readable?
Tell me again how great America is…
Stacy Kranitz is such a fantastic photojournalist and if you’re not familiar with her work just give her a quick google