Ashley just had a baby. She’s sitting on the couch in a relative’s apartment in Clarksdale, Miss., wearing camo-print leggings and fiddling with the plastic hospital bracelets still on her wrists. It’s August and pushing 90 degrees, which means the brown patterned curtains are drawn, the air conditioner is on high, and the room feels like a hiding place. Peanut, the baby boy she delivered two days earlier, is asleep in a car seat at her feet, dressed in a little blue outfit. Ashley is surrounded by family, but nobody is smiling. One relative silently eats lunch in the kitchen, her two siblings stare glumly at their phones, and her mother, Regina, watches from across the room. Ashley was discharged from the hospital only hours ago, but there are no baby presents or toys in the room, no visible diapers or ointments or bottles. Almost nobody knows that Peanut exists, because almost nobody knew that Ashley was pregnant. She […]
Tuesday, August 15th, 2023
She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade.
Author: Charlotte Alter
Source: Time Magazine
Publication Date: AUGUST 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EDT
Link: She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade.
Source: Time Magazine
Publication Date: AUGUST 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EDT
Link: She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade.
Stephan:
Here is another Red state horror story about a 13-year-old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and had to carry her pregnancy to term because she could not have the pregnancy terminated. These stories should shame us as a nation, and we should recognize that all of these stories are directly the result of Republican governance. But we don’t seem to care about these children who have been forced to become mothers before they are even out of elementary school.