Editors have a nasty little habit of telling news writers, "you
missed the lead," when a complicated story buries itself in facts
and figures but fails to discover the salient feature that made it
worth doing and thus worth reading. When an entire newspaper, and
then its ombudsman, miss the lead, it is worth a few lines.
The Washington Post began an ambitious three-part series Sunday,
December 19, entitled "Pregnancy and Homicide: The Unknown Toll,"
the gist of which was that the states and the CDC and whatever
agencies keep track of intentional deaths are remiss in keeping
records regarding the killing of "new or expectant mothers."
The series cites many statistics, observes that 13 states don't
keep such records, but asserts its discovery that there have been
at least 1,367 homicides of pregnant or new mothers since 1990. But
the main burden of the series is anecdotal, sketches of the
victims, how they were killed pre- and post-partum. "Their deaths
passed quietly," Part One begins, detailing three victims slain in
North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia.
"They all were pregnant," the series says, "with futures that
seemed sure to unfold over many years." (Given the life-expectancy
of young Americans, this is undeniable.) In this first installment
are photos of 24 victims, and in the series overall the stories of
several. All but two of these dozens of accounts share something in
common. In the two dissociative cases, the women were killed by
their husbands, men to whom they were married (legally, we must
presume). In all, not some, all, of the other cases,
marching in thanatoid succession through the series, the women were
slain by the fathers or suspected fathers of their fetuses or
babies to whom they were not married.
In short, the series could have been slugged: "Unmarried
Pregnancy and Homicide." But that would spoil the aseptic
objectivity of a numbers study.
The series does not underscore this salient feature of the
relationship between the victim and the assailant. By omission it
simply accepts it. Shameka Fludd of Columbia, Maryland, we are
told, had a comfortable apartment. At 23 she already had "two sweet
kids." We are told, "the [new] pregnancy had come as a surprise.
Her circumstances were not ideal, not what a single mother would
have chosen..."
"You don't have to have anything to do with the baby," she is
said to have told the father. But she told her sisters the father
already had sired two babies elsewhere and told her another would
ruin his life. He shot her in the head as she lay in bed. Her
convicted killer will be sentenced next month. Grandmother is
raising one of the other two and one is with the father.
It goes on, case after case. Some women in their upper 20s. One
as young as 14. Shot, stabbed, in a couple of cases the
non-surviving fetus being buried with the dead mother. The series
tells us no one knows exactly how many children are rescued from
the wombs of their dying mothers. The tone of the series is
exasperation that better records of pregnancy and homicide have not
been kept. Not with choices made.
The final installment features the case of Rae Carruth, the
all-American first round draft pick of the Carolina Panthers, and
the killing of Cherica Adams five years ago.
"Her soul mate," she had described Carruth to her parents in
Charlotte. But when Adams got pregnant, one night she followed
Carruth's car down a lonely road, was hemmed in, and shot by men in
another car. Carruth is serving time for conspiracy, is appealing
his conviction , and insists he had nothing to do with the slaying.
"We were never boyfriend and girlfriend," he's quoted as saying.
"We slept together."
The Washington Post's ombudsman, Michael Getler, dealt
with the series the next Sunday after it began, calling it a
"prodigious, valuable" study. And again the assessment is
statistical. "The criticism that seemed most worthy of attention
was directed at the statistical underpinnings of the project,
especially those statistics that were not in the articles, and the
cautions about the data." In short, does pregnancy really increase
a woman's risk of getting killed in America? Well, it sure
increased the chances for those we were told about, most especially
unmarried pregnancy.
Nowhere in the series is there a suggestion that somebody, aside
from the statistics collectors, is making a mistake, that some
societal acceptance is now also a recipe for death. There is a hint
of it when Pat Brown, a criminal profiler from Minneapolis, is
quoted as saying, "If the woman doesn't want the baby, she can get
an abortion. If the guy doesn't want it, he can't do a damn thing
about it. He is stuck with the child for the rest of his life, and
he's stuck with that woman for the rest of his life. If she goes
away, the problem goes away." In other words, the acceptance of
unmarried pregnancy, by the subject of it and by her family and
friends, carries with it a measure of danger.
Pat Brown's "if she goes away, the problem goes away" isn't
always true. There is Chancellor Lee Adams, now 5 years old. He was
delivered from the dying Cherica Adams by Caesarean section and now
of course is being raised by his grandmother. He has cerebral
palsy, needs help walking even with his braces. The series tells us
he has learned about 12 words.
It would be helpful to America, to its women, and to the general
welfare, if one of the early words in all vocabularies were
"no."
topics:
Abortion, NATO, Oil
