Everyday Erinyes #172

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Some days – some weeks – it seems as though the headlines in the mainstream media are being written by the Onion, or maybe by Andy Borowitz. These things just CAN’T really be happening, can they?

Well, sadly, yes.

Take, for example, this one –

Pregnant woman indicted for manslaughter after she is shot in the stomach by another woman

Here is, not the whole story, but a more detailed summary by Walter Einenkel:

27-year-old Alabama resident Marshae Jones was taken into custody after a Jefferson County grand jury indicted her on manslaughter charges. The charges stemmed from an incident between Jones and another woman, 23-year-old Ebony Jemison, in December of 2018. According to reports, the two women got into a fight that ended with Jemison reportedly shooting Jones. Jones, who was pregnant at the time, survived but miscarried her pregnancy. Initially, authorities tried to indict Jemison on manslaughter charges in the death of the unborn fetus. However, after a jury failed to indict her, authorities turned around and charged Jones.

Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid told reporters that “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby,” saying that the fetus was the only real victim of the whole event. “She had no choice in being brought unnecessarily into a fight where she was relying on her mother for protection.” (emphasis mine)

Yes, you read that correctly.

A woman shot another woman, who was pregnant. The pregnant woman subsequently miscarried.

A grand jury refused to indict the woman who fired the shot.

However, a grand jury (I don’t know whether the same or another) had no difficulty indicting the woman who was shot.

Is this insane? Or am I insane?

Wlter Einenkel, a staff member at Daily Kos, is of course concerned about this case, but also about the legal precedent which is being set:

There is also a very real and disturbing legal precedent being set. Does this mean that once a woman is determined to be pregnant, she can be indicted of manslaughter or murder if she has a soft cheese, a glass of wine, or doesn’t have the prenatal bloodwork telling her she has gestational diabetes, resulting in a miscarriage? While not the norm, there are enough woman who do not realize they are even pregnant for long stretches of time that a television series once existed telling those stories. If any of those women had happened to miscarry, would they have been considered perpetrators of “negligent homicide?”

Anyone besides me having a flashback to Lindy Chamberlain?

Meanwhile, over in Tennessee, there’s this headline –

Low-Wage Workers Are Being Sued for Unpaid Medical Bills by a Nonprofit Christian Hospital That Employs Them

In case you don’t immediately wrap your head around that (There’s a lot to take in), here’s one example:

This year, a Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare housekeeper left her job just three hours into her shift and caught a bus to Shelby County General Sessions Court.

Wearing her black and gray uniform, she had a different kind of appointment with her employer: The hospital was suing her for unpaid medical bills.

In 2017, the nonprofit hospital system based in Memphis sued the woman for the cost of hospital stays to treat chronic abdominal pain she experienced before the hospital hired her.

She now owes Methodist more than $23,000, including around $5,800 in attorney’s fees.

It’s surreal, she said, to be sued by the organization that pays her $12.25 an hour. “You know how much you pay me. And the money you’re paying, I can’t live on,” said the housekeeper, who asked that her name not be used for fear that the hospital would fire her for talking to a reporter.

So, OK, granted that this employee’s medical expenses in question were incurred before she started working for the hospital in question (does HR have a policy of hiring people who owe them, in order to know where to find them in order to keep them in court? Seriously, in just about the last five years the hospital has filed over 8,300 lawsuits against patients – not all employees, but many were.) But another thing is, that the insurance provided to employees requires them to seek health care only through their employer, which has the least generous assistance program of any hospital in the area.

An expert in hospital billing practices said that if the hospital is suing a fair number of its own employees, it’s time to look both at the insurance provided to workers and the pay scale.

“One would hope that if this is an action being taken against a significant amount of employees, the hospital would look at the insurance they provide workers,” said Mark Rukavina, an expert in nonprofit hospitals and a manager at Community Catalyst, a health care advocacy organization.

“One would hope” – well, chalk up hope along with thoughts and prayers as things that don’t work, at least not without assistance from action.

Oh, and did I mention that this particular hospital happens to own a licensed collection agency? Hmmmmm.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, please help us to realize that, as strange as the world, and in particular our nation, is becoming today, things like these are still not normal. And help us to do something about them.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.