The third post in this three-part series on Drugs, Women, and Families is based on the valuable research of Jamie Feyko, who during my drug law seminar investigated how pregnant women with substance use disorders are treated in the United States. In short, they are blamed, villainized, and punished. The trend toward criminally charging pregnant women who use drugs with crimes began in the 1980s and has been growing ever since. Feyko’s review of major cases reveals the extent to which politics and racism drive this phenomenon. But she also contextualizes this history within a set of cultural assumptions about motherhood and pregnancy that leave many women with few options for treatment and care.
motherhood
Fiction Points: Carla Sameth
Carla Sameth is the author of the memoir-in-essays One Day on the Gold Line (Black Rose Writing 2019). She teaches creative writing at the Los Angeles Writing Project at California State University Los Angeles, with Southern New Hampshire University, and to incarcerated teens through WriteGirl. She has attended and received financial support from the Vermont College of …
Breast or Bottle: La Leche League and Alcoholics Anonymous as Lay Health Movements
Editor’s Note: This post is from Contributing Editor Michelle McClellan.
I’ll begin with two anecdotes, the first of which is probably familiar to most Points readers. In 1935, a stockbroker named Bill Wilson found himself in Akron, Ohio for a business deal. When it fell through and Wilson felt the urge to drink again after a period of sobriety, he reached out through area ministers and was put in touch with a woman who arranged a conversation between him and Dr. Robert Smith, a local physician who also struggled with his drinking. Their conversation is now recognized as the genesis moment of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
