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What's the endgame here? It's not clear from the article. Assuming they're not suggesting that the fetus be removed from the mother, are they aiming to get the

• wccrawford 4y ago
  "says the jail staff has endangered the fetus by refusing proper prenatal care and putting her in situations like the incident in the inmate transport van." "That would require Harrell to be released until the child is born, the writ argues." I'm inclined to believe that the lawyer really does have the child's best interest at heart, and anything they're asking for that helps the mother is really intended to help the child.
  • izzydata 4y ago
    [flagged]
  • NationalPark 4y ago
    I think it's more of a sovereign citizen "hail Mary" type move to get her out of jail. Even in states that don't have a constitutional notion of "fetal personhood", a pregnant inmate is still entitled to adequate prenatal care, and that's the relief they should be seeking, not habeas corpus for the unborn child.
    • thebooktocome 4y ago
      If it can be legally proved that the jail is incapable of providing adequate care (seems pretty likely, considering how terrible American prisons are generally), then they’re within their rights to enjoin the court for other remedies. Time to see if the courts actually care about unborn personhood, as much as they’ve been crowing about abortion.
      • benj111 4y ago
        That's not the case. If you were imprisoned even though you hadn't committed a crime, the adequacy of the care you receive while in prison is completely irrelevant. If the child is innocent it shouldn't be imprisoned, simple as. Assuming you believe an unborn foetus to be a full fledged human being of course.
        • Georgelemental 4y ago
          The child is stuck in the womb of his/her mother either way, it makes no difference where that womb is.
          • orwin 4y ago
            I mean, sunlight exposure, nutrients, prison violence... The fœtus is exposed to all of this, and more. Tbh I don't care, except if she wants to carry the future baby to term. Then you'll have a carrenced baby without mother contact during his first three months, probably fed with powdered milk that does not contain any antibodies. Nice start in the world.
    • cld8483 4y ago
      > I think it's more of a sovereign citizen "hail Mary" type move to get her out of jail. It would only delay the inevitable by a few months at most, right? Trials regularly get delayed for years anyway, so they may as well delay her sentence for a few months.
      • nickpeterson 4y ago
        Well newborns need to be breastfed by their mothers to be healthy… don’t underestimate motivated lawyers.
        • gameman144 4y ago
          Baby formula exists, though, and is a totally viable alternative, so this one seems like it'd be thrown out pretty quick.
          • jfk13 4y ago
            "My religion requires me to breastfeed my infant naturally."
            • cld8483 4y ago
              Even if that worked, it would still only get her something like a 6-12 month reprieve. She's been convicted of murder, none of these ploys will get her out of going to prison eventually.
            • gameman144 4y ago
              Might as well skip the middleman and go straight to "my religion requires me not to be imprisoned".
              • nickpeterson 4y ago
                Why not? How is this rule any different than any of the others in a religion?
    • salawat 4y ago
      If you have to sue to get adequate prenatal care, then only pregnant inmates who know that will get said prenatal care. If precedent is set that demands the fetus' legal innocence must be accounted for, this basically forces the legal system/corrections into a position where they have to make a move to really telegraph what is more important. That an innocent not be subjected to the penal system, or that the incarcerated are afforded the dignity of reasonable medical care, which then has to be factored into cost of incarceration. It'll also test the will around really upholding fetal rights once it starts manifesting in the form of $$$ required on the Government's part to pay for it's own externalities w.r.t. incarceration. This is actually a neat little wedge that'll get driven in between the social/fiscal conservatives in that the last thing the fiscal's want is more needs for entitlement funding, especially if it involves the incarcerated; all of which could be elided by ignoring the thorny issue of a fetus claim to personhood. Without that, the social conservatives lose a leg of their anti-abortion stool. Either way, I can see the headlines/arguments now: >Shit, 3 square meals a day, work, and government funded medical care, sign me up! >Inmates get better care than law abiding citizens... ...Might even force everyone to realize this whole "no one can compete against a Medicare that can negotiate" is a sign of the retarded levels of inefficiency in the healthcare space so we can actually get some scrutiny on why the hell things are so janked in that department. Either way, I love disruptive cases like these.
      • pnutjam 4y ago
        [flagged]
    • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Exactly. This feels similar to the type of "hail Mary" when a woman tried to argue that she should be allowed to drive in the carpool lane alone because she was pregnant and thus her fetus should count as an extra passenger. In that case, though, a judge agreed with her and her ticket was dismissed, and a bill was even filed in the TX House to explicitly allow pregnant women to use the carpool lane.
• WorkerBee28474 4y ago
  "The petition by attorney William M. Norris says the “unborn child” is innocent and should be discharged from jail so it can receive proper care. That would require Harrell to be released until the child is born, the writ argues." "Without proper care, though, Norris said he fears the fetus will be harmed before or during childbirth." "In 2018, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that all pregnant defendants should be granted habeas corpus and allowed to await trial at home."
  • pkdpic 4y ago
    Makes enough sense to me. Or we could just provide world-class healthcare to inmates. Or just put prisons next to hospitals. Or make them the same thing. Honestly the last time I was visiting someone in a hospital for an extended period it felt like a prison. Not looking forward to eventually dying in one. Maybe they'll be full of backflipping atlas nurse robots by then...
    • djohnston 4y ago
      Your physician will be automated before your nurse.
      • mindslight 4y ago
        It seems like most physicianing has already been automated, while continuing to run on top of skinjobs. I mean, 20 minute appointments where they haven't studied your previous history, don't engage with what you say except to explain it away, and just pick recommendations from a limited set of go-to options? Most pedagogical k-maps have more complexity.
    • misnome 4y ago
      > Or we could just provide world-class healthcare to inmates I mean, that's a big jump. Might be worth starting with US-class, although I doubt it's affordable.
      • jonathankoren 4y ago
• boringg 4y ago
  They are trying to make a fetus get the same rights as a person in an effort. It's an attempt to open up another front on the pro-life:pro choice front opening up.
  • csours 4y ago
    Or it's an effort to show that a fetus is not automatically a person from conception. I think almost every reasonable person would agree that any fetus who can survive outside a mother is a person, and that personhood starts at some point before that viability test; I think there is a lot of room to discuss a question of personhood in the first few weeks of development. My personal view is that personhood requires a mind, and here on our physical earth, a mind requires a brain with some level of development. My personal view is that level of development is not reached in the first trimester. You are perfectly free to disagree with me on this! I am not trying to unduly influence anyone's point of view. I cannot say you are wrong if you disagree! I would like to gently point out that there are facts in this discussion, but there are also opinions, deeply held beliefs and analysis. Only the facts can be fact checked. The opinions, beliefs and analysis require some kind of framework for discussion.
    • cld8483 4y ago
      Both these abortion-related takes are incredibly cynical. I know lawyers aren't people but even they might earnestly care about a pregnant woman and her fetus/child...
      • csours 4y ago
        My comment is not meant to preclude that. I do not expect to get a complete analysis of a situation from internet comments.
      • freejazz 4y ago
        > I know lawyers aren't people Yuck. Of all the comments I see, the ones from lawyers seem the most human and less misanthropic or so purposefully obtuse as to suggest one has no connection to society at all, etc, like I see from so many developers drooling over their edge-case applications of definitions as if the law was some sort of "whatever you can say goes" as opposed focusing on what actually makes sense.
• CamperBob2 4y ago
  All (or most) of the above, hopefully. If fetal personhood made any sense at all, it would have been introduced at some point in the last 6000 years of human civilization, and not invented a couple of years ago by the Republicans. Arguments like this serve to highlight both the impracticality and the sheer goofiness of the idea.
  • dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Pretty much every prior civilization dealt with this by making anyone who was a dependent into property from a legal perspective, maybe with an asterisk for "don't beat them too much". Once you stop doing that all sorts of edge cases start emerging.
    • giraffe_lady 4y ago
      > Pretty much every prior civilization Incredibly broad claim here that frankly I don't think a global view of history anywhere near supports. Either extremely narrow view of "prior civilization" or just straight ignorant. Even the concept of personal property isn't near universal!
      • dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        Oh please. How were kids treated in Ancient Europe? The Ancient near east? Medieval Europe and the near east? What about ancient ancient China? Specifics vary but generally speaking in all these cultures kids had rights on par with slaves, maybe with a little bit more protection from physical violence depending on the society and whoever the head of their household was had property rights over them. Women were generally treated a little better but not much. Only within the past couple hundred years did it stop being acceptable in the richest nations to sell a kid off as a quasi-indentured servant. Women were treated a little better but not much. I'm sure there's some north American tribes that treated everyone much more equally but they are the exception not the rule. Someone of your bent should know this.
        • 4y ago
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• dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Are they aiming to make a point about how fetal-personhood doesn't work with many aspects of the law? Possibly. But the point has already been raised many times with regard to child-personhood and the courts have generally solved that by tailoring their precedents so narrowly as to not preclude future case by case decision making.
  • RC_ITR 4y ago
    Sure, but this is a very specific case where you cannot really do that without being completely disingenuous (which to be clear, may be the outcome that happens). You can very easily not send a child to jail (because they have full legal personhood), but right now this fetus is considered 'part of the mother' as it relates to incarceration. Hard to argue that a fetus has some constitutional rights, but isn't subject to the Fourth Amendment. Like I said, a judge will make the argument that the fetus' environment is the womb and by that definition, their circumstances have not changed by being in jail, but that feels thin?
    • ElfinTrousers 4y ago
      > Like I said, a judge will make the argument that the fetus' environment is the womb But then, a lawyer could argue that the mother's imprisonment affects the womb environment (bad food, bad medical care, constant high levels of stress). IANAL but that argument doesn't immediately seem ridiculous to me.
• BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  presumably the lawyer is representing his client to the best of his ability and pursuing all legal avenues to keep her out of prison
• AdrianB1 4y ago
  Endgame in my country is that pregnant women cannot be imprisoned for any reason, plus a couple of years post birth; we have cases where they get pregnant again and again until the prison sentence ends, so they never spend a day in prison. It is used sometimes as a "get out of jail card" as a woman that is already in prison can get pregnant to get out.
  • scarby2 4y ago
    In my country they just have a secure maternity ward with access to specialist care. After birth the child is allowed to live with it's mother inside a specially equipped prison. The child is in no legal sense detained as it is free to be sent to live with anyone else should the mother choose for someone else to raise the child.
    • AdrianB1 4y ago
      Your country has a wiser system than mine.
      • olddustytrail 4y ago
        In your country (which one btw?) what percentage of women are under sentence but out due to pregnancy/childbirth vs those imprisoned?
        • AdrianB1 4y ago
          Romania. I don't have official statistics, there were some news also mentioning it. I don't think anybody is counting it to avoid public rage. About 10 years ago I read about 2 sisters that had 33 children in total, I don't remember what was the crime, just the county they lived in. Not all the kids were to avoid jail, only a few.
          • olddustytrail 4y ago
            I think no-one is counting it because it's such a tiny number that it's ridiculous to even care about. Read the second paragraph you just wrote and realise how absurd it sounds. You're worried about two women?
• JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  Yes, no, yes. I think it'll be interesting to see how this case and others play out.