Maybe it was cruel of Elizabeth Holmes to have these kids, but beyond policing people’s reproductive choices there is not much I can think of to prevent her from doing that, at least not until this country completes its full transition to Gilead, so moralizing that choice isn’t appealing to me.  Moralizing over how…

Caging human beings and separating them from their families, with all the harms we know that cause, is a choice we make as a society.  I guess I’m less willing to assume than other people that Elizabeth Holmes’s children will be better off with one of their parents in a cage for the better part of the first 10 years…

I wish some of the people replying to me would ask this question.

Holmes clearly doesn’t. Why should I care about her kids more than she does?

I guess you’d have to explain to me how the harm that she caused is mitigated by the harm caused, to her and her children, by imprisoning her.

What topic? The topic of the harms that the carceral system inflicts on so many people, so many of them innocent? I actually know a fair amount about that topic. Or whether Holmes is such an inherently cruel person, who will be inherently harmful to her kids, that I can confidently state, as you did, that it’s a good…

The “policing reproductive choices” thing was a response to you accusing Holmes of being cruel for conceiving a child “knowing” she’d be going to prison soon.

I’m sympathizing with her along with the thousands of other women who also have to deal with this, and the children.

It is cruel torture to cage a pregnant person, it is cruel torture to separate children, especially newborn children, from their parents due to their parents being caged.

I’ve watched one documentary about Elizabeth Holmes. She seems like a person I would not want to be around, she is undoubtedly a fraudster. But beyond that, I don’t know enough about her to know whether she is “inherently cruel and harmful,” and certainly not enough to know whether keeping her away from her children…

It’s cruel because it is cruel to rip children away from their parents. The timing of the pregnancy doesn’t make that not cruel. It’s cruel to the parents, and it’s cruel to the children who are innocent of any wrongdoing. I’m not into policing people’s reproductive choices or their motivations for their reproductive…

Okay, mine was a serious question as well. I’m not sure what would have made you think I’m joking. I didn’t say there was no distinction, I was asking what you think the relevance of that distinction was to what my point was, especially in light of the fact that most of the women in that statistic probably also got…

You should care about the effects of caging parents away from their young children on those children, who are innocent of criminal wrongdoing.  You don’t care about children’s suffering?

Maybe! People say that about people living in poverty or near-poverty who have children, too. I’m not in the habit of policing people’s reproductive choices, but if that’s the road you’d like to go down, it’s a free country, knock yourself out.

Is that?

Maybe it is a blatant attempt to stay out of jail. I don’t care about that. What I care about is the cruelty, not only to Holmes but also to her children, who are innocent of any wrongdoing, of caging her away from her children. It’s cruel whenever it happens, it doesn’t become less cruel just because I happen to know…

The relevance of that difference being what exactly? That difference doesn’t stop making it cruel to cage mothers and separate them from their newborn children, who are innocent of any wrongdoing in any event. Also, the stat in that quote from the article is about women giving birth IN PRISON, which would mean, for…

Who fucking cares when she had the kid?If she’s “playing for sympathy” from me, she wins, regardless of her motivation, because I will never not have sympathy for families ripped apart because of the pointless operation of the machinery of the carceral system.  It doesn’t stop being cruel just because she may not have…

Don’t apologize for a diagnosis that doesn’t exist. Congrats on being so important, though, I’m sure you’re not delusional. I guess I’ll look at this as an example of a “substantive” argument, just saying words with no meaning and no evidence. Good luck figuring out a definition of “woman” and “man” that is actually…

Notably, it’s an accommodation that many other pregnant people who face prison sentences and don’t share Holmes’ privileged background are routinely denied. Roughly 2,000 babies are born to incarcerated pregnant people annually.