When miscarriage is murder

As I've explained a few times, most recently in March, pregnancy makes an American woman a second-class citizen. Pregnancy -- planned or unintentional -- is a life-threatening condition. Ordinarily, a person who takes on a life-threatening condition is never compelled by law to continue with that condition if they don't want to. The sole exception is when the life-threatening condition is pregnancy. Although it is always less risky at any stage of a pregnancy to terminate it rather than to complete it with childbirth, a pregnant woman under most circumstances does not have a full, total, unimpeded right to exit from her life-threatening condition without some state involvement.

This problem has been manifesting itself lately with the scary trend of women who suffer miscarriages but then are charged with murder. Lynn Paltrow restates my point, speaking for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women:

Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws. It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights.

Women who have miscarried are being targetted with "chemical endangerment" laws written to address children in meth lab homes (Alabama) or with "fetal homicide" statutes (38 states) written to address domestic violence, not stillbirths (South Carolina).

Miscarriages happen. They happen for no reason, or they happen because a woman suffered some physical trauma, or they happen because a woman took a drug, legal or illegal. They happen before implantation of the conceptus, they happen shortly after implantation, they happen in the first trimester, and they happen later. They are largely unpredictable and accidental, and in fact they're devilishly hard to induce outside of a clinical abortion. They happen in wanted pregnancies and unintentional pregnancies. Sometimes they half-happen; that is, one of two twins miscarries, but the other is successfully carried to term (that was my experience). They are, by definition, not murder.

When abortion is murder, then every stillbirth is a crime scene. When miscarriage is a homicide, then every menstrual period is a crime scene, because every time an ovulation does not result in a pregnancy, it is very possible that conception happened but implantation did not. That is a miscarriage; when these laws are enacted, enforcement of the law will require some kind of monitoring. Proposed language in Georgia carves out an exception from its fetal homicide law for miscarriages where "there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" (Ga. General Assembly). But a period starts when a pregnancy fails to occur, and any period may indicate a very early miscarriage. How is this to be policed? When abortion is murder, every pregnant woman is a suspect until she enters the labor and delivery room. When miscarriage is murder, every woman is simply a suspect.

"Dear Cinema Projectionist"

Earlier this month, the San Diego Reader reported that Terence Malick sent an open letter to projectionists where The Tree of Life would screen, asking them to kindly take a few extra steps when they show his newest work. One website has posted a scan of what they say is an original copy of the letter, as well as couple of other examples of "Dear Projectionist" letters from 2001 and 1975. The notes read as friendly, almost deferential requests ("I understand this is an unusual request yet I do need your help"; "[t]hank you for taking the time to consider this request") emphasizing the enormous amount of effort, art, and skill that the highly respected filmmaker put into films in question ("[a]n infinite amount of care was given to the look of [this film]"), and acknowledging the critical role of the projectionist in the audience's consumption of the artwork ("we consider projectionists to be the last remaining artisans of movie exhibition"; "[a] fraternal salute").

Joining the ranks of Malick, Kubrick, and Lynch is now highly successful former TV commercial director Michael Bay. If you think his recent letter to projectionists is anywhere near as classy, humble, or appreciative as the other three examples, you'd be wrong. Instead, he cajoles projectionists with silly but vaguely guilt-tripping team-building language ("[w]e are all in this together. Your theatres invested a lot of money in this equipment") and then warns that he'll put the blame squarely on them if audiences rebel ("your expertise defines the audience's experience"). That's right: if audiences and critics pan Transformers: Dark of Moon, it's because the film was badly projected -- not that it was badly conceived, written, edited, or crafted.

But far be it from me to concern-troll for the projectionists! I'll let them speak for themselves. Because, really, I couldn't have made the Trash Humpers reference any better on my own.

Mental health day

Retail therapy, a matinée of Malick's The Tree of Life, and maybe some music tonight.

Ladies' night at the anarchist bookstore

Off to learn about menstrual extraction. Who knew these kinds of women's consciousness-raising and empowerment meetings were still going on?

Protesting, "meta" protesting, and Vancouver

So the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup and the fans who congregated after the match to congratulate their team on a good run and a fun season were overwhelmed by asshole rioters who trashed an area of town.

Reminds me of the assholes who ruined the World Trade Organization protests in 1999 in Seattle.

There, we had tens of thousands of ordinary people in the streets -- union members and kids on rollerskates, enviro-weenies dressed up like turtles, university students and professors, people who build Boeing planes and Microsoft software -- peacefully marching and basically partying to drums and music. Then the assholes came in and started smashing windows, spraypainting chain restaurant buildings, and lighting fires. The result? National news favorably covered the WTO and the establishment; the progressive message did not get publicized; the assholes got their 15 minutes on national TV; and part of Seattle's downtown was temporarily drawn into a bizarre, unconstitutional "no-protest" zone (PDF by ACLU-WA).

One of the Vancouver assholes, being a nice person since he is, after all, Canadian, apologized after the Stanley Cup riots. But a nurse at a local ER won't accept the apology, and for much the same reason that I wouldn't accept an apology from the Seattle WTO assholes:

To you [...], it's a chance to congregate in the ER waiting room, pounding on the triage window demanding to be seen for teargas exposure and cuts from looting and fighting, while posturing and bragging about how you kicked the crap out of somebody and smashed shit up. To me, it's taking my time away from the little old quiet lady having chest pain or taking time away from the person you "shit-kicked" for trying to stop the looting.

At the WTO protests in Seattle, I met a little old lady who'd been nearly blinded by a rubber bullet because a bunch of assholes decided to start a riot. No question, the police overreacted -- but they wouldn't have had anything to overreact to if the assholes hadn't started smashing windows in the first place.

To bring it closer to home: A few years ago, my pal Ted lost his car to rioters after the Phils won the World Series. To the rioters, it was a fun show of strength with a lot of great crunchy shattery noises. To Ted, it was immediately financially devastating because he needed the car to get to work, but he couldn't afford to fix or replace the car without being able to get to work. Luckily for Ted, it all came out right in the end. He's a sweet, honest, likeable guy and he got publicity and generous donations. But how many people in Vancouver have been just as "lucky"?

I don't mean to be so "get offa my lawn" and "back in my day" about this stuff. But it also brings to mind an incident when I was doing clinic defense a few weeks ago. An old white guy protestor was there with a crudely constructed hand-made cross. We patient escorts were outnumbered, because the protestors were in force for a religious holiday. A young white guy, dressed like a prototypical hipster in skinny pants, a scraggly beard, and 1980s-inspired sunglasses walked up to the cross-carrying protestor. He laughed at the old man, took a photo on his smartphone, and walked away. This is not helpful. Taking a mocking photo of a protestor and posting it to a social media site is not helpful. To you, it's a harmless old man with a stupid prop for a protest. But to the clinic patients, it's an intimidating physical barrier to getting inside to see the doctor; it's a person spouting religious, woman-hating invective at young women and girls who are going in to the clinic just to get their pills or undergo a pap smear. To the patient escorts, you're another body between the patients and the front door, and we're not exactly sure of your intentions because you haven't addressed us directly. And your taking a photo, laughing, and walking away does nothing to improve the situation, and likely only makes it worse by making the women not feel supported.

Protest or protest not. "Meta" protesting (like the hipster) or taking the opportunity of a gathering to do something violent or crazy anonymously (like Seattle in 1999, Philly in 2008, or Vancouver in 2011) makes life harder for everybody else, who are left to clean up the wreckage afterward.

The job interview I didn't do

I just canceled an interview for a job in Harrisburg. There was more than one reason. One, I would be on the train 20 hours every week. Even if I bought a netbook with my first paycheck or two, I don't think they'd be productive hours, considering how early and late I'd be on the train in order to be physically in Harrisburg during business hours.

Two, the starting salary was so low that I don't even want to admit what it was. The pay was low because it was a paper-pushing job that didn't require a J.D. or law license. The job description listed the types of stultifying tasks you'd expect to see for a job at that level of pay. Fuck the benefits when it's paperwork review and 20 hours a week on the train for a job where the governor has targeted the union to cut its pay anyway.

Three, no option for telecommuting. I specifically asked if I could work from Philly one or two days per week, but no deal. I conclude that the job is quite literally paper-pushing. The job description included management-level tasks, but at that pay rate and with a daily in-person attendance requirement, it can't have been more than a single-digit percentage of the amount of work.

Nothing to do but to keep my chin up and not take this shit personally.