Telling women to ‘tough it out’ sends clear message

In their zeal to stigmatize autism and autistic people, both men show a grasp of science and human anatomy that should have been left in the 19th century.

- IRIN CARMON GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

They are also exposing the latest iteration of America’s centuries-long obsession with controlling pregnant bodies, one with devastating real-life implications. The notion that selfish pregnant people are a risk to their own fetuses has been weaponized to prosecute them for addiction, for miscarriages, for stillbirths, even as the standard of gestational perfection is constantly shifting.

In my new book, “Unbearable,” I write about an Alabama woman named Hali Burns who was arrested in her son’s hospital room in 2022 only six days after giving birth and was charged with chemical endangerment of a child. Burns had struggled with opioid addiction and was on maintenance medication that at times she couldn't afford.

When she tested positive twice for drug use during her prenatal care, the response wasn’t to offer her treatment, but to lock her up, even though her son was healthy. Burns spent months in jail, was denied sanitary supplies and adequate healthcare, and was told she could only make bail with both $10,000 in cash and a confirmed spot in rehab. The county jail she was confined to contained so many pregnant and postpartum women on similar charges that four of them shared a cell, nicknamed “the chemical crew.”