I’ve blogged about this before. It seems women are now considered disposable in America. Two distinct cases, two similar outcomes. I’m sure that many of you have heard by now about the young woman who was brutally raped in Tampa, Florida. She went to the police to report the crime – and to beg for help. When the Tampa police ran her name – they came up with an old warrant (from when she was in High School, actually) claiming she hadn’t paid restitution for a shoplifting charge. What did they do? Put her in jail for two days. Oh – they had already taken her to the hospital where it was confirmed she had been beaten and raped. The doctors there gave her the morning after pill to ensure a pregnancy didn’t occur as a direct result from the rape. While in jail – she was denied that medication. The matron in charge claimed the morning after pill was ‘against her religious convictions’, and refused to let this poor rape victim have her legally prescribed medication. Hell – she was only released from jail because her lawyer went to the media. That warrant she was jailed on? Bogus. The woman had taken care of it as a teenager. It hadn’t been accurately removed from the system. Oh – and now she’s pregnant by her rapist – thanks to some religious nutcase who thought it was perfectly all right to promote her own agenda under the aegis of the state. I guess Florida’s a theocracy now.
Case number two: A woman trying to get to the hospital to prevent an already occurring miscarriage was denied medical attention and thrown in jail on a traffic offence. A traffic offense! While behind bars - she continued hemorrhaging until giving premature birth to a four month old fetus that lived approximately one minute before dying. There is video tape of the victim pleading with officers for medical assistance and being denied:
A police videotape released Tuesday shows Sofia Salva telling officers numerous times last Feb. 5 that she was pregnant, bleeding and needed to go to a hospital.
After the ninth request, the tape shows, a female officer asked: “How is that my problem?”
How was that her problem? My god. Cold, callus, heartless - I don't know where to begin. And guess what? The victim here was black. Black and female. That’s all it takes in America to be brutalized by the police. I’m surprised they didn’t just shoot her dead in the street. You know - I don’t recognize this country anymore. We have become that which I was always taught to despise. We are the Soviet Union at the height of its paranoia. We are Germany in 1939. We have lost whatever imperator granted by virtue of our Constitution. I have wept my last tear over this. America is dead. The neocon religio-fascist cabal murdered her six years ago.
**Animation courtesy of The Tennessee Guerilla Women
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