{"id":1112,"date":"2011-12-09T08:34:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T15:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2022-12-08T15:10:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T22:10:30","slug":"haunts-the-austerity-of-childbirth-in-shackles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=1112","title":{"rendered":"The austerity of childbirth \u2026 in shackles"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/del>Austerity preys on women and children. So does State extravagance.<\/p>\n

In Greece, women in labor were turned away from public hospitals in Athens, Thessalonika, Rhodes and Rethymnon. Why? They didn\u2019t have jobs, they didn\u2019t have insurance, and they didn\u2019t have cash on hand. Because they couldn\u2019t pay for their hospital visits, up front, they were turned away. It\u2019s the new \u201chealth system\u201d, the \u201cunified medical care system<\/a>\u201d, also known as the \u201cintegrated unified hospital treatment<\/a>\u201d, under the new austerity. In this brave new world, women must pay in advance and then receive the childbirth allowance. The childbirth allowance is 600 Euros. The cost of childbirth is listed at 950 Euros, for `normal\u2019, and 1500 Euros, for caesarean section. If a woman doesn\u2019t have the full freight, she must just go. Even if she does have the money, in the end she bears the difference, anywhere from 350 to 900 Euros. Women bear the difference \u2026 literally.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s groups, in particular the Women’s Initiative Against Debt and Austerity Measures and the Independent Women’s Movement, broke the news and mobilized public opinion. Greeks were outraged. The Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity was shocked and announced that, from here on, no woman would be turned away. However, she still must pay the difference.<\/p>\n

This is the new face of Greece, the face of austerity. In the United States, this would be business as usual. As one Greek noted<\/a>, \u201cThey turned us into America, where you are finished if you don’t have any good insurance!\u201d. Another agreed<\/a>, \u201cI am touched, we are becoming America. Giving birth for free in public hospitals? Impossible. Wipe out childbirth allowance NOW as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welcome to the United States of America.<\/p>\n

In the United States, if a woman prisoner is in labor<\/a>, many states will spare no expense. They will buy the best shackles available<\/a>. In 36 states<\/a>, women prisoners in childbirth are handcuffed to beds and delivery tables, are shackled<\/a>, are refused family in the birthing room, and are denied access to their newborns.<\/p>\n

Florida is one of those states. A bill is currently in the legislature that would \u201ccreate uniform and humane rules for the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women<\/a>\u201d. Gruesome as that phrase is, in Florida, and in the United States, it\u2019s progress. Illinois passed a similar bill<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

For undocumented immigrant women prisoners<\/a>, predictably, the situation is worse.<\/p>\n

The line from shackling women prisoners in childbirth<\/a> across the United States to refusing to treat women in childbirth in Greece is a direct line. In both instances, rational human beings decided that this course of action made sense. It makes sense to shackle women in childbirth? It makes sense to turn away a woman in childbirth? No, it does not.<\/p>\n

Austerity and prison are parts of the new global unified medical care system, which is part of the global unified political economy. And in that `unification\u2019, women bear the difference \u2026 literally.<\/p>\n

(Photo Credit: Alkis Konstantinidis \/ The Daily Beast<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austerity preys on women and children. So does State extravagance. In Greece, women in labor were turned away from public hospitals in Athens, Thessalonika, Rhodes and Rethymnon. Why? They didn\u2019t have jobs, they didn\u2019t have insurance, and they didn\u2019t have cash on hand. Because they couldn\u2019t pay for their hospital visits, up front, they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5194,166,114,5139,5157,556,5198,295,1006,1468,5089,296,1467],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-austerity","tag-childbirth","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-florida","tag-greece","tag-haunts","tag-illinois","tag-immigrant-detention","tag-immigrant-women","tag-independent-womens-movement","tag-shackles","tag-women-prisoners","tag-womens-initiative-against-debt-and-austerity-measures","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26695,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/26695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}