8 September 05

Arpaio – Pro-life or Pro-death?

Recently, I received a letter from Linda Saville, cofounder of Mothers Against Arpaio, describing the treatment of a pregnant female at one of Joe Arpaio’s jails.
Here are Linda’s words:

“The girl is in her early to mid twenties. She was in either her late first trimester or early second trimester of pregnancy, so say about three or four months. She had not received any prenatal vitamins, or special accommodations for her pregnancy of any sort.
Her cellmate happened to be a registered nurse who witnessed this girl lose her baby. It starts as cramping; she doesn’t feel well; she starts bleeding; she asks for help from the guards. No response. More time goes by, still bleeding; still no help. The ‘nurse’/celly is caring for her, and also trying to get help.
Finally, she passes the baby in the toilet of her cell (and it’s not a quick process). She blacks out from the loss of blood (and probably the trauma as well) and the nurse/celly is finally able to get the attention of medical. A battle-axe bitch nurse comes in huffing and puffing because she actually had to go to the cell; she wakes the unfortunate inmate with smelling salts and (get this) actually has the nerve to tell this girl that she is going to get a trash can so that she can fish her own baby out of the toilet because she (the CHS nurse) is not going to touch it.
Can you imagine? It still gives me the chills to think about it.”


Both chilling and disturbing, Linda.

Arpaio’s rhetoric may be pro-life but his actions would seem to be pro-death, and his complicity in this stillbirth is yet another reason why Joe must go.

Arpaio loses (for a change) in the State Court, over women’s rights in prison.

Email Jon at writeinside@hotmail.com or post your comments below
Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is sad. I have seen (not quite first hand) of how he treats pregnant women. my cousin was in his custody when she was pregnant.

However, she did recieve some treatment, but not as much as she should have.

I will say that, in that early of a pregnancy.. the baby is barely the size of a peanut unshelled. sounds a bit exaggerated in some sense. I know that there is a suit against someone that was spreading rumors unfortunatly... who knows.

Anonymous said...

If you'll refer to post, it mentions that the pregnancy is at least 3-4 months. In no uncertain terms, the pregnancy can be no less than two months at a minimum according to the post.

It may sound exaggerated to someone who is "normal", but that kind of response from a jail/prison nurse is plausible.