The death of Patricia White after hope expired in her battle with neuroendocrine carcinoma at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston was a huge loss for West Virginia. She founded and ran West Virginia Health Right to provide free health care focusing on women and children as well as chairing the House Health & Human Resources Committee while serving in the West Virginia Legislature.
In essence, her work and dedication for women was outside the box. Not only did she speak for women, she spoke and worked with women, listening to their concerns as well as observing the struggles women and their children faced in accessing health care. The box issue came up again, ironically also in Texas, where women are being told “Just don’t bother me. Put it in the box and we’ll deal with it later.”
According to a recent article in The Washington Post, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services reported that at least 18 babies had been abandoned last year. In Texas, a state that has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans, one of the highest birth rates and ranks next to last for women’s health and reproductive care, there is virtually no access to prenatal care and nowhere to turn for a new mother who decides she cannot keep her baby. This especially applies to women without private insurance and to undocumented immigrant women regardless of how long they have been living in the country.
Medical providers, those who one would think could provide helpful lifesaving guidance and care, instead back away. They fear that they will be arrested. Without the ability to talk with a provider each pregnant woman is left on her own to deal with issues that arise during pregnancy and with the outcome.
And where do they go if they miscarry? Or if they deliver a healthy baby but are unable to care for it? They may well be told: “Look, I’m busy right now. Just put it in the box and we’ll deal with it later.”
The location of Safe Haven Baby Boxes at least in certain municipalities in Texas and a few other states, is public knowledge The boxes are padded, climate controlled, cost up to $20,000 and are described in Lubbock Texas as being “sanctuary cities for the unborn.”
Yet a conversation with a woman struggling with her pregnancy — wanted or unwanted — does not take place. There is no sanctuary, no safe place, for her to talk, to receive care. Sound lopsided? It is only one aspect of this injustice.
A woman does not get pregnant all by herself, right? It takes a man. And where are the men in this scenario? Well, they are likely to be first responders to answer the call that a baby was found in a garbage bin. The homicide investigator is most likely a man. So too the legislators coming up with restrictive laws that target women. Those aren’t the men who need to be involved. Where are the fathers of those babies? Where are the men who impregnated these women? Why are they taking no responsibility? Why are we not talking to men, and with men, about unintended pregnancies long before they occur? As of now, remember, it is the woman who deals with all the uncertainty and the fear of criminalization if she tries to seek help during a miscarriage.
There is a great deal of attention given to the birth of a baby. Though often a joyous occasion, it can also be a tragedy. Regardless, a newborn baby is recognized as human. As humans we talk to each other, not at each other. We listen to each other and respond. We reach out to help and know we can ask for help if we need it. When we act, we also take responsibility for our actions.
In this current situation regarding pregnancy outcomes, we seem to have forgotten that. In absolving men from acknowledging and taking responsibility for impregnating a woman, we are isolating women. In prohibiting appropriate medical care for women in their reproductive years, we are dehumanizing them.
We suggest we deal with these disparities now, not later. We too need to be thinking and acting outside the box.
Carol Weston and John David served together in the Peace Corps in Ghana. Her parents founded Black Mountain College, near Asheville, North Carolina. She is a retired family nurse practitioner.
John David is an emeritus professor at WVU-Tech and director of the Southern Appalachian Labor School, in Fayette County.
