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Thanks for your note.
Anyway, let's face it--as
long as women remain the primary
care givers it will be impossible
to separate children's rights
from women's rights. This is
similar to the rationalization
that welfare is a separate issue
from women's issues--huh? So
you are certainly right that
not only should these two be
looked at at the same time,
but they can't be separated
from class and race issues.
Also if you look at the women
who are being criminalized in
relationship to their relationship
to their children--inevitably
these will be poor women of
color. The only time the government
or the media seems to care enough
about poor black women to pay
attention to them is when they
wrongly want to vilify them
by wrongly exploiting them in
the media and/or cutting funding
for the programs that serve
them.
In the United States this has
been brought to light through
a couple cases--one is charging
a mother (Tabitha Waldron) with
murder because her infact died
of lack of nutrition. What they
fail to focus on is how this
woman had a breast reduction
and was never told that this
would affect her breast feeding.
Another example, are the women
who are labeled "crack mothers"--women,
mostly black and always poor,
who are charged with murder
because they used crack while
pregnant--neglecting the fact
that these poor women are denied
basic nutritional programs--which
causes more harm than the crack
could.
Anyway, cases like these are
often handled by the Center
for Reproductive Law & Policy--a
U.S. based group working to
change the situation for these
women. You could contact them
and see what other information
they have. Also, I suggest you
reference Dorothy Robert's book,
Killing the Black Body--which
further looks at these cases
as well as how racism often
underlies such cases.
I hope that helps--and good
luck to you.
—Amy
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