I have a friend who has been trying to 10 years to get her tubes tied. What you've quoted above is the same crap she hears from doctors every time she asks about the procedure. No one has agreed to do the surgery for her, and she's 30 years old and married to someone who also doesn't want kids. She's basically begged doctors to do it, and they still refuse. It's ridiculous and sad. She has struggled taking birth control, as she usually suffers numerous side effects, and the last thing she wants to do is have an abortion (if she were to accidentally get pregnant).

Sometimes, even if you try to do everything right, there are still people out there who will refuse to allow it.

Oh, the irony.

There have been PLENTY of middle class families struggling over recent years to try to put food on the table and a roof over their families' heads. The economy tanked, in case you forgot. How do you suppose some of these poor people became poor? Sometimes, it's because they were in the middle class and a shitty situation led them to live in homeless shelters with their 3 kids.

ETA: What even constitutes "middle class" nowadays? It doesn't seem that anyone can agree on an answer.

The fact that you took my comment as a serious statement is a bit disconcerting.

I tried to get my tubes tied at age 38- divorced with two kids and with a disease that required medication that would be harmful to a fetus. Nobody would do it. At the same time, nobody would give me BC pills anymore either. It was infuriating.

Quoted For Truth.

The latest economic downturn, job loss, and foreclosed home crisis were not only about "poor people". It was primarily people who were considered middle class who had not accumulated wealth and lived paycheck to paycheck. These people were living a relative good life with a house, cars, other materials. Many of them believed the pro-reproduction hype and thought they were financially and mentally prepared for kids. Wrong. But too late now. Now they need to find financial and emotional resources to help them stay afloat. More cities are assisting the middle class (i.e., mortgage assistance for teachers) instead of all resources going to the poor. The goal is to help middle class stay afloat so fewer middle class will trickle into poverty. It isn't as difficult as people like Kevin believe.

So, if poor people are going to be scrutinized, also knock on the doors of the non-poor. The non-poor don't get to hide.

:( I apologize to SydneyK for the thread jack.

No need - I've been on GC long enough to know threads have a tendency to get off track. At least the current discussion is interesting!

Maybe she needs to get a t-shirt made with Susan Smith's face on it and wear it to her next appointment.

Or get a new OBGYN.

People in some cities are compiling lists of OBGYNs who stick with their training void of bias. There are OBGYNs who without challenge do tubal libations for women without children and women done having children.

Our bad.

At least we now know Kevin's knowledge and experience with the poor is limited to work with juvenile offenders. :rolleyes:

Its appalling that it's come to this. That men can get snipped no questions but women have to argue and find a willing doctor. Yet another way to keep women barefoot in the kitchen.

I know men that were snipped before they were even old enough to drink.* I'm sure the excuse is "oh it's so much easier to reverse." But still BS.

*An ex was one of those. He said it was because he never wanted to be completely responsible for another human being. Some people would call that selfish, but if anything, it's the total opposite - to know yourself and be true to yourself enough that you can admit that and fly in the face of convention. The selfish people are the ones who have kids just because they're "suppposed" to and grit their teeth through every minute of it.

No, I don't work on the delinquent docket at all. It would be hard to infer from anything I've said that I work on a delinquent docket. That's okay though, it just shows that you have little knowledge of what a typical juvenile justice system looks like. All of my juvenile work is in representing deprived children or alleged deprived children. They are or allegedly are all the victims of their parents' abuse or neglect. When I'm representing children, it is usually at the show cause (the non-profit I volunteer with provides attorneys to appear at the show cause hearings to take the burden off of the public defender's office) and I appear on the regular juvenile docket when the public defender's office is conflicted out. I also represent parents who are have had their children picked up in trying to reunify the family.

See. When you say the above things regarding volunteering with non-profits, you appear to be a pretty okay guy who many of us would really like and respect. I completely love that you volunteer and I respect that. I think that's great. When you say things where you come off as pretentious by telling people about all your knowledge and how much more you know than them or how much more educated than them you are (or think you are), it's hard to say, "Wow. That Kevin is pretty awesome." I applaud you always taking on the title of "that guy" who will say something that is unpopular because you believe it. I truly like that about you. You just need to work on going out and assuming you know way more than other people. When you do that, it's hard to really appreciate you for the person you are. Just think about it.

Juvenile Justice System:
http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/structure_process/

When most of us say we do work in the juvenile justice system we are talking about juvenile offenders, some of who are also victims. We aren't talking about a subset of the system that only deals with juvenile victims.

Ether way, what you do is not a representation of poor people and I'm sure they would be offended to know you deem most of these people as lesser than and unworthy of procreation. That is a slap in the face of community efforts.

I liken it to the white person who volunteers with Black youth because Black people are supposedly too dumb and need white people to save them. No, thanks we don't need your help. We have genuine people who volunteer and don't think Black people are inferior.

The thing is though with these families, I work for them pro bono, I see where they live and how they live and really do get to know them a lot of the time. Sometimes, I just get a 15 minute report from a caseworker and then have to do something with it. Other interactions are more in depth.

When I state that I have a lot of experience with poverty and child neglect and abuse, I'm just stating facts. And my experience is vast compared to your average individual.

Education... I wouldn't exactly claim that. I've gone to plenty of juvenile CLEs and as you know, poverty is often a contributing factor to abuse and neglect.. and back to the main topic, in some situations, it is absolutely needed to give law enforcement the power to charge mothers who harm their children in utero criminally.

Keep in mind that for most criminal offenses, especially for females, especially for non-violent offenses, incarceration is not what the prosecutor is going for. There are many wonderful programs like drug court which can provide extra incentive for parents to shake up. I've seen too many times where mothers who really love their kids just can't seem to shake their drug habits. I had one mother who I really went the extra mile for her and got her placed on the state's dime in two different inpatient facilities. She checked herself out both times.

Had she been facing serious time, we might have had better luck.

That is not representative of poor people and it excludes the non-poor. Get a diversity of experiences to avoid supporting policies based on misrepresentation and extremes.

It's not a subset, it's probably more than half of the entire juvenile system. Again, your lack of information here is amusing.

Well, no. When I represent kids, it is because their parents are being represented by the public defender or the public defender has some other kind of conflict where they're representing the parent in a criminal matter. In these cases, every one of my clients' parents have submitted pauper's affidavits which have been approved by a judge. I don't know how my clients would be offended when their parents have sworn before the court that they are too indigent to hire their own lawyers. When I represent parents, it's because they or someone they know has the money (usually a parent, grandparent or employer) to afford a private attorney.

And I never said they were unworthy of procreation, just that I hoped that if properly incentivized, some people who probably shouldn't reproduce might voluntarily sterilize. You're making this much more of a thing than it actually is with all of these unwarranted assumptions about eugenics.

I'm not aware of eugenics programs ever being voluntary.

Again, most of us across states (many attorneys included) who say we do work in the juvenile justice system are not talking about "victim services" (juveniles who are only victims). The primary emphasis of the juvenile justice system is juvenile offenders which makes juvenile victims a subset regardless of the comparative size of the services across states. If you don't know that, you are the one who lacks information.


When talking about these specific populations, only in your mind is there a difference between the bolded.

Again, unless this is just across all states but Oklahoma, what you just said is absolutely not true. There are far more resources dedicated to the deprived system in my state than the delinquent programs. I can't imagine it'd be different anywhere else.

What specific populations have I talked about? I've only suggested people who want to be sterilized should have that option, it should be free and I'd love to see a subsidy paid as well. All of this other stuff you're making up in your head.

Apparently so...and OJJDP.

The amount of resources devoted to juvenile offenders as compared to juvenile victims across states isn't the point. The point is next time you say "juvenile justice system" either clarify you do work in "victim services" or don't be shocked if people think you work with offenders. Problem solved.

Stop being obtuse.

I don't feel like I'm the one being obtuse in this scenario. If you have read all of my posts in this thread, especially in my discussions with als, I don't think there's any way you could reasonably conclude I was representing delinquent children.

Everything I've highlighted (bolded in pink) are examples of the kind of Kevin I like talkikng to. I'm sure many others would agree with me on that. I believe that you have tons of experience in this area and I definitely would not argue that. You just have to be careful not to assume that your knowledge and experience trumps that of other people. DrPhil and many others on here also have extensive knowledge in these areas. As far as the education thing goes, once again, you are well-educated. You hold a J.D. That is respectable and no one could argue that. I think what really turned me, and some others on here, off was when you claimed to hold more or better education than many of us---not really knowing what degrees we may hold or our levels of experience/ education. That made it an all-out war on here as we went back and forth (I am also to blame for this) playing, "Who can be the most pretentious and have the last word?" Just remember that many of us on here have lots of experience and education in these particular areas and can also contribute to the discussion.

I appreciate that both you and DrPhil will have this discussion with very different points of views. Otherwise, this entire thread could potentially be one-sided. While you can educate us on the legal system dealing with certain issues, I believe DrPhil can educate us on intersectionality. Let's try and respect one another in this thread--and other threads too.

(Your obtuseness is in reference to claiming you are not targeting a specific population for paid sterilization.)

Your posts in this thread could just as easily be about your work with juvenile offenders or juvenile victims. Many juvenile offenders come from troubled backgrounds and that includes juvenile offenders who have been victimized. There are community organizations and people (not only the attorneys) who work closely with the juvenile offenders, spend time with juvenile offenders' families, and in the juvenile offenders' home/neighborhood environments.

But, the points are: (1) "juvenile justice system" within-state and across-state typically refers to the offender populations; and (2) you are not dealing with a representative sample of poor people (the origin of this particular back and forth) and should not support a program that targets poor people based on extremes.

Is this an update to the OP?

Hearing delayed

Well, as you said, juvenile offenders come from a fairly representative cross-sample of society. Much moreso than what you find in the deprived docket where poverty is almost always a contributing factor and when I'm appointed to a case, it is ALWAYS an aspect of the case.

But it's funny now that I've established my poverty bona fidees, you are wanting to talk about how you must insist referring to the juvenile justice system and not specifying that I'm talking about deprived cases when that fact was obvious to anyone from the context and you not picking up on it was obviously my mistake is your big deal of the thread now. Let's definitely change the subject.

And I never said I was dealing with a representative sample of poor people. Just the ones who abuse or neglect their children or are at least accused of doing that.

Good.

I'm wondering whether you have a few screws loose.