The Texas Abortion Ban, Vigilante Justice and Frankie Valli's Love for Human Connection

-Susan Cook-

"Jersey Boys", the emotionally sensuous, tender musical journey of the 1960's-era Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons is now the one remaining 2021 production of Maine State Musical Theater shown to vaccination proving/ masked audiences only.

Opening night coincided with the US Supreme Court 5-4 decision to not review the Texas abortion law which appoints and allows citizens to seek vigilante justice against a medical provider or insurance company who is "suspected" to have supported or enabled a woman to terminate a pregnancy. A Vigilante Justice mindset toward women who support or act on Reproductive Choice is not new. Social media "shaming", "outing" if not outright harassment have become commonplace, fostered by Vigilante Justice -types- those who have seized on anti-abortion stands as a chance to fan the moral crevices of their narcissism through anonymous Facebook or other social media posts. That has yet to become a prosecutable crime so it is not surprising that women's privacy again is seen as fair game for assault if not rape.

The music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was and is a mirror for the moral narcissism of their time. The libido-driven romance of – yes- men and women (adolescents and adults) reckoning with the quest for deep human connection- heterosexually- it seemed- carrying on the myth of "The One" while the fifties and sixties culture around them minimized any of the psychological or physical trauma of the time. The unwanted pregnancies, some terminated by inner city abortionists, the deaths that followed from physical consequences or suicide, the closeted men and women invisible in the cultural edification of heterosexuality, the dismissiveness toward date rape, incest, domestic violence, wife and child battering, the lack of any safe and sound child care options so latch-key children were left as caretakers, 9 years old left to caretake  5 year olds.

The Four Season's second big hit, "Big Girls Don't Cry" perfectly mirrors the time's trivilialzation of deep emotional pain:

"...told my girl we had to break up

...maybe I was cru-you-el...

Shame on you, your Mama said...

Shame on you you're crying in your bed...

Shame on you you told me lies...

Big Girls Do Cry...

Any number of teenage women whose disclosure of an unwanted pregnancy or incest or rape or sexual intercourse were met with (still often are) physical assault, face slapping, shunned exile or abandonment by mothers, fathers, relatives, the circles they might have reached toward. Collectively, the woman's emotional pain became invisible. The shame that Facebook and other social media now profit from in their anonymous posting options allow the Vigilante Justice-types a new means for public shaming through privacy rape. Many Frankie Valli-era teenagers and young women died from the shaming that fueled their drug or alcohol addiction or promiscuity or suicidality. Big girls don't cry.

Shame is precisely the emotion that the Senior Legislative Aide of Texas Right to Life, Rebecca Parma attempts to generate in an NPR interview when she offers the false equivalence that terminating the pregnancy of a zygote, embryo or fetus which is non-viable outside of the mother's uterus is equivalent to killing a child that even rape or incest do not justify.The 30 or 40-something Rebecca Parma now endorsing Privacy rape by forcing providers to disclose private medical information is as exploitive as the Frankie Valli-era exploitation of privacy then dismissing as "private" incest, date rape, domestic violence and in the case of unidentified paternity, fathers whose signatures and names were left off birth certificates of infants born to single mothers, later left and ignored in foster homes, foundling homes or orphanages. Ancestry.com has now filled in many of those blank signatures. Ms. Parma may not know of any suicided pregnant women or backroom abortion recipients or incested or physically assaulted children. The Texas Abortion law renders them as invisible to her as the privacy rape victims the law targets. A case in point is the non-acknowledgement to her Republican colleagues of the profound impact being born into poverty carries. As early as 1980, the Maine Children's Death Study documented the strongest correlate of child death before the age of 18 as the child's household's eligibility for Food Stamps.

Tragedy came Frankie Valli's way, too. His 22 year old daughter Francie died of a drug overdose, alcoholism ended his marriage , likely more human suffering than Jersey Boys reveals. But his lyricists and songwriters brought their creative longings to the moral underpinnings of true love: that it could be good, whole and true. In 1967 "You're Just Too Good to Be True" came just six years before Roe Vs. Wade began to unpack the cultural truth around him, in all its human suffering, walkup abortionists and suiciding 20- somethings. Roe vs. Wade began to prevent what had always belonged to women to bear: the ignored suffering of children after birth . Frankie Valli's devoted musical reverence for the deep nourishment of a healthy life-enhancing human connection did not and could not succeed in bringing those to fruition in the ways that Roe vs. Wade has- in far far more ways than Ms. Parma could ever know, despite the Texas license giving her and anyone else permission to invade privacy at whatever cost.

As American as Apple Pie:  Domestic Violence and The Abuse of Power to Tarnish Victims' Credibility
-Susan Cook-

The other day on a radio call-in program, Susan Collins, Maine's Senator, justified her vote for Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court because (she said this) even though she thought something awful happened to PhD Holder and Academic Scholar Christine Blasey-Ford, Susan Collins didn't think it was Brett Kavanaugh who did it. In other words, Susan Collins just can't bring herself to grant Dr Ford credibility. Playing both ends against the middle, this time with Dr Ford's credibility, like she has in the US Senate. At the same time, Susan Collins said that to believe Dr. Ford threatens the entire judicial standard of innocent until proven guilty. What she didn't say is that by automatically granting credibility to a Job Applicant over his accusing victim, she replicates an abuse of power that keeps victims silent.

Two of the most agonizing moments for assault victims are when it happens and when the victim discloses. For women, credibility is immediately questioned- with or without professional accomplishment, with or without the scrutiny of a large audience.

On men's side, and on the side of Susan Collins who has gained longevity by playing the middle against both ends, is Power and the fact that men require less Proof to back up their statements than women do. We have seen the backwash from men finally held accountable for their abuse of power in the #Me too movement. Many of those men remain "miffed" or staunch in their refusal to take responsibility for the abuse of that discrepancy - financially, culturally, physically, in professional hierarchies ( 80.7 cents for women for every dollar men make). Indeed, many fall back on their reverence for "Power" to justify the reluctance to continue to fight #Me too.

The Public Radio host whose host public radio organization distanced themselves rapidly finally published his NOT "Mea Culpa" column, advising the reader to "look what happened to me" over a "harmless flirtation". Discrepancy of power places whoever was on the receiving end of the "harmless flirtation", in a subjugated position. Power interferes with saying "No", further undermined when, as the Pubic Radio host said, "she worked for me but it never happened in the office." He called upon his concern for the powerlessness of children in the NOT "Mea Culpa" piece to explain how he has managed to water down his anger toward #Me too which remember "Look what it did" to him. A negligent out not unlike Susan Collins claiming herself the better judge of what happened to Christine Blasey Ford. The magnitude of the discrepancy in physical power of adolescent boys and adolescent girls is not that hard to fathom.

This call-in program preceded the opening of an exhibit called "Finding Our Voices: Breaking the Silence of Domestic Abuse" at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center in Maine, encouraged by Patrisha Mclean, the ex-wife of the singer Don McLean of "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie". He was convicted 3 years ago of domestic violence criminal threatening, criminal mischief and criminal restraint.

One of the women in the exhibit, the wife of a man named "Charlie" who took out a gun and threatened to shoot her after she told him she had almost suicided, did not speak for years of the domestic abuse in her marriage. She left, still not disclosing until two years after she left, at 65, 43 years into the marriage. Had she disclosed before, her credibility would be on the line.

Many years ago, I was a colleague of the man who physically assaulted his wife for those 43 years. With 3 other Professors, we flew to a northern Maine University to teach graduate students. I taught life span development, always including sections on childhood sexual abuse, abusive relationships and abusive parenting. Those were topics that I had a deep commitment to, and still do. In one of the videos I always showed in the class, the victim said "Sexual abuse is about power. The abuse of power." Thirty three years ago, the reality of incest was not broadly acknowledged. Nor was wife battering or domestic violence. Or child abuse. Or parents who gave themselves license to terrorize or abuse. The college where I taught was sexist. I complained about the job inequities of assigning me to teach 4 courses I had never taught before and The "Dean" clearly made a mental checkmark against me for speaking out about that.

No one would have guessed that this quiet man had his own private target when his power was challenged. His wife. And to this day, abuse of power to keep victims quiet persists. The Edna St Vincent Millay Poetry and Arts Festival began a day or so after Susan Collins' radio appearance. It included a Poetry Slam and reading held at night at a local bar. The organizers felt compelled to include a Caveat to poets and artists taking part.

"Please be advised. As participants will include people of all ages, please be sensitive to content and language that might be of concern, scare children or trigger trauma."

No one wants to scare children or trigger trauma. The accusatory nature of the statement was inflated and not necessary in this context. Even when that was pointed out, the organizer still would not take it off the website.

And with it, the perpetrating "Charlies" and the adolescent "Kavanaughs" go about exercising their power. Yet, one more time, those who have experienced trauma will question if they have the power to speak about it or will say it "right" or won't "upset" anyone. Even at a Poetry and Arts Festival. The contributions to the power that diminishes women's credibility are many and varied. From the US Senate, to the dimly lit bar at night, credibility of the victim takes second place to the protective tidings of the powerful. I noticed that a person featured in that video many years ago had signed up for the poetry slam. I made the decision not to take part. I don't know if the person who appeared in the video 33 years ago did.

Speaking  As If They Know, Part Two:

Reproductive Choice, Provider Trust and Billing Specialists

The moral responsibility of reproductive choice is frequently reduced to the slickest "messaging" for those on either side of the political divide. The paucity of knowledge among those asserting viability of a zygote, embryo or fetus becomes quickly apparent when the complete dependence on the mother's mental or physical wellbeing is ignored. If a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy, reasons for the termination should remain as private as every other aspect of medical intervention, equally protected by the Health Insurance and Portability Privacy Act.

The reason women terminate a pregnancy is documented in the electronic billing forms every medical practitioner must use for payment after an abortion procedure, when the patient's health insurance is either Medicaid or a United Healthcare insurer. Approved by the National Uniform Claim Committee, the form itself is frequently revised. Childbearing-age women are targetted.

In a dropdown menu, on the electronic HCFA-1500 form, in Section 10D, a list requires the billing party to "click on " the circumstance:

"Abortion performed due to rape

Abortion performed due to incest

Abortion performed due to serious fetal genetic, deformity or abnormalty

Abortion performed due to a life endangering physical condition that is caused by, arising from or excerbated by the pregnancy itself

Abortion performed due to physical health of the mother that is not life endangering

Abortion performed due to emotional/psychological health of the mother

Abortion performed due to social or economic reasons

Elective abortion

Sterilization"

If the medical procedure code billed in Section 24D of the HCFA-1500 is termination of a pregnancy, not filling in Section 10D likely means the bill is rejected. It is not at all clear that the information in Section 10D is HIPPA- protected just because it is included on the HCFA-1500.

On a recent Fresh Air episode, a New York Times reporter described recent Supreme Court cases potentially effecting Roe V. Wade, one being the Court's decision to let stand a lower court decision overturning a law that said a woman " can't have an abortion if [she's] doing it for a bad reason. And among those reasons were that the fetus has a disability or you wanted to choose the sex of a child". Terry Gross asked the important question:  "The law that said that a woman can't decide to have an abortion based on choosing what gender she wanted to have or deciding to have an abortion because the fetus was diagnosed as having Down syndrome or another, you know, serious illness or abnormality - if a woman says, I'm having an abortion just 'cause I want to, who's to say that she's having it because she's choosing the gender? Who's to say she's having it because the fetus was diagnosed with Down syndrome? I mean, how can you know what's in a woman's heart when she decides to have an abortion? "

In response the New York Times reporter said about the laws "They're symbolic, in a way. They'd be very, very hard to police. What woman is going to announce that - in the face of such a law, that she's aborting a fetus because of Down syndrome? It's also a curious law that says, sure, you can have an abortion on a whim. You just can't have it for an expressed reason that a lot of people might think was a sound reason. "

The New York Times reporter may be unaware that "the reason" for the termination of a pregnancy is already collected and mandatory on the required HCFA-1500 billing electronic form when a termination is performed. No provider gets paid through Medicaid or United Healthcare (or its subsidiaries) without Section 10D and Section 24D completed. That is not argued out in the Supreme Court. It is now determined at the form scanner of a billing specialist.

There is nothing trivial about the collection of that information deemed important by the National Uniform Claim  Committee of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services . Even HIPPA-protected information can be subpoened through law enforcement. That data potentially provides the answer to Terry Gross' question and the New York Times reporter's uninformed response. There is nothing symbolic about data from millions of HCFA-1500 forms at risk of disclosure to partisan groups who deny the critical dependence on the mother of the developing blastocyst, zygote, embryo or fetus and create law holding that termination reasons are subject to their approval.

Any reporting on the fate of Roe v. Wade must be closely attuned to the ground-level tactics that invade the privacy and trust level between a patient and a provider and the vulnerability of that breech to the partisan co-option of a woman's body and reproductive choice.

The Nutritional Requirements of Hatred: Food Stamps and Reproductive Rights

In my state the Governor has decided that any childless adult who owns more than $5000 in cash or leisure vehicle assets cannot receive food stamps. Who he is targeting is difficult to say. Many pregnant women in this state eat because they receive food stamps. Previously, he has made every effort to drive asylum seekers who cannot work for six months after applying for asylum, away. Then there are the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, unemployed women who then become pregnant.

Actions that withhold can carry as much hatred as any other. But this policy is yet another example of the permission politicians in our country have to infuse policy discourse with hatred. Many of this Governor’s actions have gone hand in hand with hatred - public shaming by insisting people have photos on their food stamp cards- and now a kind of public strip search - If a childless person has more than $5000 worth of anything this Governor will make the person remove it or lose food stamps.

But hatred is now a nationally accepted political fuse, can come from both the far right and far left. To see hatred in political discourse, one does not need to travel too much farther - in my state- than the weekly free community newspapers . In one local free community newspaper, there is one columnist who every time she writes about abortion and reproductive control, laces her remarks with accusatory, demeaning , insulting a hateful tone. Then there are the protesters jeering and insulting women entering Planned Parenthood clinics. Hatred fused by what another human being is afraid to do, cannot do, or refuses to do is now accepted as just another part of the political discussion around reproductive rights and pregnancy.

Of course, when political debate about reproductive rights and abortion is laced with hatred its louder message to childbearing age women is that the prospect of the birth of a child is not  bathed in love and nurturance. Women have always been the target of whatever hatred has existed around unwanted pregnancy- shaming, physical abuse, anonymous sequestering until a child is born only to lose any identity connected with the child after birth. In fact recognition of hatred around unwanted pregnancy since Margaret Sanger’s time (and before) has always been a driving force behind the Reproductive Rights and Choice movement.

All that hatred attached to reproductive rights does nothing to address unwanted pregnancy as a social problem that must be addressed. Which brings us back to this Governor refusing to allow any single pregnant woman who has put away more than $5000 in assets from keeping it, if she wants to feed herself and her unborn child. If that withholding doesn’t make clear how hatred is now accepted as a political fuse, then please get out your Human Development books and read what a pregnant woman needs to eat- to bath the baby- once born- in love of health. The nutritional requirements of hatred are not enough and never have been.

Speaking As If They Know: Legislators and Reproductive Rights

"Sonograms clearly show a beautiful little human, not just a blob of tissue," she said.

What Ms. Guerin does not know is that the beautiful human she is referring to - we do not know what gestational age she refers to when she makes these statements- may very well not survive outside of the the uterus without a healthy mother's prenatal experience and extremely complex medical intervention. We also do not know how well the ethical code is enforced for Ultrasound technicians who may well give factually inaccurate and misleading remarks when sonograms are made about the presence of "heartbeat". The fact remains that survival outside of the womb is only possible-again with complex medical intervention- many gestational weeks after conception or a prenatal sonogram. As the Maine legislature considers the bill to expand which practitioners can provide gynecologic intervention, the licensing board that licenses ultrasound technicians must also be rigorous in sanctioning ultrasound technicians who distort information given to pregnant women in the privacy of the examining room.

And here is another Maine legislator State Senator Scott Cyrway (R- Albion) who voted against the bill. "What would be the difference of us voting for a veterinary to do it? I'm saying that we are looking at life and we need to take this more seriously." Again, we confront the lack of knowledge of legislators who have not read the rigourous licensing and educational and professional standards nurse practioners, midwives and physicians assistants must meet for licensure and how they differ from veterinarians.

The debate about terminating a pregnancy frequently excludes any mention about the complete dependence after the point of conception with the mother's life. If the zygote, the embryo or the fetus does not survive during pregnancy, the mother will live. The reverse is very often not true.

You would not know that listening to the debate- largely along partisan lines- about reproductive choice. You also would not know that based on the bills- along partisan lines- in Maine in the last 8 years- to deny workers a living wage, to make sure that food stamp recipients- pregnant mothers too- were not allowed to keep more than $5000 in assets. That amount is a two month security deposit on an apartment, an emergency fund or just enough for a used reliable functioning car. You would not know that based on the refusal- along partisan lines- to expand Medicaid to young child-bearing age youth- who instead- left with no insurance- have no access to reliable birth control, mental health care to prevent suicide or self-harm or self-medication with drugs or alcohol.

The complete interdependence of the mother's life during the pregnancy with the developing zygote, embryo or fetus is left out in discussions of the "miracle of life" by people who are uneducated about what happens after conception that 40 weeks later leads to a live breathing birth. Without knowledge, discussion of the termination of a pregnancy is reduced to misleading, distorted information from white men, politicians, unethical ultrasound technicians, anti-abortion and religious groups who are silent after a neonate arrives. There is instead ample room for shaming and humiliation- however they can manage it- toward women who see reproductive choice as a moral responsibility, who know this society is not waiting to sustain after a live birth the breathing infant. In Maine, underfunding of Child Protective Services led to complete negligence in overseeing care of at-risk children and deaths of several foster care children. There was- then- limited concern for pregnant women- similar to Alabama's historic lack of compassion toward people of color, now brought to pregnant women.

Privacy Rape, Facebook and the Right to Be Free From Exploitation
-Susan Cook-

I was listening to Heidi Schreck, the playwright whose Broadway production "What the Constitution Means To Me" discusses  "How Women Have Been Profoundly Left Out of the Constitution", as the Fresh Air Heading says. Ms. Schreck talked us through the long arduous constitutional journey from the 1965 Supreme Court Ruling that finally legalized birth control for married women, to legalization of birth control for unmarried women to legalization of abortion in Roe vs. Wade. All 3 of those, decided by Supreme Court justices, all white men, whose premise is that the Constitution protects Privacy.

Ms. Schrek brought to mind a term I have been thinking about for some time. "Privacy Rape".

It's very clear that the public still doesn't get or perhaps laws and the Constitution still fail to protect Privacy: privacy of personal information, the privacy of the person, the privacy of what people do in their lives.

The casual oblivion to matters of privacy was exemplified in a message posted on Facebook by an Executive Director of a major political party directed to a significantly influential political organizer who previously was single-handedly responsible for the election and re-election of hundreds of Democrats from the largest Legislative district to the state Legislation. "We noticed you signed up to volunteer for GOTV. As you know, we've asked you not to volunteer with us anymore. That has not changed. Please don't come into our offices for GOTV." This a post ignoring Privacy violation to publicly shame let alone damage Reputation by an Executive Director giving herself permission to communicate using Facebook.

Privacy is and has been better acknowledged by other politicians, Senator Ted Kennedy in particular. He significantly influenced passage of the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act which insures that patients are told about the limitations of information sharing, when the patient has not signed a Consent to Release. HIPPA specifically states that psychotherapy notes are off-limits to those seeking to access HIPPA-protected information, their exclusion hopefully the strength of Kevlar.

But the use of Facebook to casually exploit privacy (and abuse) is reflected in ongoing public permission to minimize privacy. The platform, after all, has repeatedly failed to legitimize complaints from users about personal abuses and the intrusions Facebook used to capitalize on private material as revenue.

Date Rape only became fully acknowledged form of sexual assault after it was given a name. The familiar, the seemingly socially solicitious becoming the sexual perpetrator. The guise of innocence is similarly postured by Facebook users who go onto engage in Privacy Rape or stand passively by as others engage in it too.

On Frontline recently, the Vice-President of Social Good at Facebook Naomi Gleit repeated the company's mission in the wake of the company now beginning to own up to the abuse and violence the platform's unique chemical mixture of anonymity and mathmatical exponents. "Bringing the world closer together" by doing good, she said, is the company's mission. Is it all in the past?

The quest for closeness through sharing information and listening to others is a human magnet for psychological intimacy. It is a magnet that can spiral into voyeurism and Privacy Rape much as physical touch can descend into Date Rape.

That Mark Zuckerberg's team, the company's beatific Vice President of Social Good and others did not consider that something called Privacy Rape could evolve out of anonymous , mathematical exponent-driven information sharing perplexes. History explains that human exploitation is preceded by social shaming, stigma creation and anonymous permission to ostracize. The isolation of Jews in pograms and ghettos came after generations of social stigmata, all of which gave way to exportation to concentration camps. The same could be said of Native Americans and their forced emigration to Reservations . Well-educated, privileged Facebook executives did not- and probably still don't grasp that their mission to create human connection does not undo the power of anonymity and math exponents. as lubricants of abuse.

Like generations before the Supreme Court privacy rulings, Facebook has ignored how their users posts might- and have evolved into- Privacy Rape. Their many, many "This post does not reach the level of abuse" automated replies to complaints echo- the sanctioning of violations of women's privacy- violations of a woman's bodies- violation of the right to privacy.

Despite repeated legal volleys- the Supreme Court has not backtracked on the Constitutional right to privacy. The surreptitious succoring of private information that Facebook freely engaged - like generations before them- says the temptations to transgress in secrecy - abusively- persists among the most privileged and innovative. And in the Facebook users who passively stand by as Privacy Rape continues without posting one word to stop it.

How to be Invisible: When love doesn't make children visible

Since December of 2017, the caretakers of 5 children in Maine have been sentenced  for murder or charged with their murder. The cause of death of two of the children  was changed to homicide. These children only became visible after they died. They were all age 10 and under  Two of the children lived in the District of  the very fiscally conservative State Senate President who now is running in the primary for Governor. The prior  Health and Human Services Commissioner who has drastically cut Maine's Child Protective budget is also in the Governor's primary race.

None of the candidates have acknowledged the damage cutting Child Protective services brings. The Child Maltreatment annual summary by federal DHHS reports that children screened into the Child Protective system waited on average 90 days, in 2016.

Three million dollars a year would provide weekly home visits to the 700+ children "screened in" by Child Protective. The child's other lifelines:  teachers, health care professionals, neighbors and relatives who care, would also be checked-in with.

Love fails as a child's lifeline- more than we acknowledge. And it is no guarantee that the parents will place the child's safety and well-being above all else. Rage, greed, ego and pure negligence  can easily take priority. We only need to observe "high conflict"  divorces or those high in "intimate partner violence" to see this. The legal system, judges, attorneys and Guardian Ad Litem- who are paid to assess the child's best interest with little or no formal training among those who are attorneys to do so- often collude in ignoring the significance of safe love to the child- to the safe attachment figure. They advocate for divvying  the child up like daily newspaper deliveries. Sometimes no visits for one parent whose ex-spouse has more money to hire lawyers. Often other household members are not even evaluated. The journal Pediatrics observed that children in homes with  a parent's partner who is not-biologically related to the child are 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries.  Passing a background check bears no influence on that fact- unless there's a prior conviction. HIgh conflict divorce is an emotional travesty for another day.

Maine's  5 child murders come during the ongoing politicization of birth control and termination of an unwanted pregnancy.  An unwanted pregnancy, as even Donald Trump  made sure was addressed in his hush agreement with a former sexual partner, leads to an unwanted birth. Adoption in no way guarantees that the prenatal care of a fetus- abstinence from drugs, cocaine, opiods, alcohol, proper nutrition and mother's self care- will be adequate.   Nothing even the power of love- guarantees to change that. Foster care is- as Maine's DHHS currently affirms, is grossly inadequate.  One of the 5 murders was at the hands of foster parents.  Two at the hands of non-biological partners of a parent. Four of the children were ignored by Maine's DHHS despite repeated calls to the Child Abuse Hotline about them. Of the 8392 calls annually made, less than 10 % are screened in. They wait an average of 90 days receive services.

In 1979, in a  Masters' thesis, I first wrote about parent characteristics related to the abuse or neglect of a child. In the 1983 article later published, the first sentence which I wrote said love is not enough to prevent abuse and neglect.

We now know in 2018 that invisibility of the child- is a very high risk in child maltreatment. The more invisible the child, the more likely danger to the child will be ignored. That can also be said of unwanted pregnancies forced to continue when a 9 month gestation period of safety depends completely on the mother's health, sobriety, medical care, nutritional adequacy and self-care. Without a healthy gestational period, a fetus is at very high risk .  If the fetus survives to a live birth, the child 100 percent bears the consequence of the negligence and the politicization of neglect and prenatal abuse that only the woman whose body carries the zygote, the embryo, the fetus knows took place. In 2015, Maine's governor and the DHHS Commissioner ruled that any childless adult who owns more than $5000 in assets cannot receive food stamps.  That’s not enough to buy a reliable vehicle or a down payment on a home but to insure that those without know they are truly without. He refuses food to all the child bearing age women and the zygote, the embryo or the fetus she carries.  Medicaid funding for females of child bearing age has been denied by Maine's fiscally conservative.

Love does not insure that children after they are born  will be visible to caretakers, to the agencies funded to protect them, to the parents who conceive them, in order for someone to be accountable for the impact of their care on the child or on an embryo, a zygote, a fetus.  We  live in a society where children are invisible. Five of them were murdered by caretakers in Maine.

The Indifference Diaries: Part 2 Prioritizing Corporations Over Maltreated Children

-Susan Cook-

In December of 2017, a 4 year old child was murdered by the partner of her grandfather, after Maine's Child Protective Services placed her in their foster care. She is one of 3 children murdered or whose perpetrator was sentenced for murder in Maine since December. The living situations of these children were not investigated by Child Protective despite multiple reports. Maine funding for Child Protective has been substantially reduced. One example: 2.2 million dollars for Community Partnerships for Protecting Children will end in September.

In December, local legislators not far from where the 4 year old lived were carefully catered to the BIW Vice President Jon Fitzgerald grooming them to sponsor a 3 million tax cut bill for the local subsidiary of the fifth largest weapons maker in the world. State Senator Dana Dow of Wiscasset, the town where the 4 year old lived in an under-investigated foster home, has spoken loudly about the need for that 3 million dollar a year tax cut.

There is not enough money for both good services for maltreated children and 3 million for BIW managment in the state budget. If there were, children who have been screened in as likely child maltreatment cases would not have to wait an average of 99 days for services.

Then there's the ten year old in Stockton Springs who died in February after being beaten daily, multiple Child Protective reports ignored. State Senate President Mike Thibodeau and State Representative Karlton Ward represent the district where she lived while Child Protective report after report were ignored by an underfunded DHHS. These legislators too want the state to give that 3 million dollars a year toBIW.

The annual federal Child Maltreatment report has been published for 27 years for the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, by the Children's Bureau of the Department of Human Services. Child fatalities, Child Protective Services data and Perpetrator data are voluntarily sent. Maine has gaping omissions in the data they submit.

*Maine's Data on the number of child fatalities in 2016 is left out.

*Maine's Data on the number of child maltreatent victims eligible for then referred to other agencies is missing

*Maine's Data on the number of maltreatment victims who received court action is missing.

The Child Maltreatment report is available about a year after it is collected. Maine's 2016 Child Maltreatment information sent in tells us there were about 225000 children under 18 in Maine.

*There were 3158 perpetrators that year who maltreated 3446 child victims that year.

*1626 children received services that year.

*Of those 1626 children, 799 received services on or after the report date.

*The average number of days after report until the child received services was 99 days .

* About 23 calls a day or 8392 calls were received through the Child Abuse hotline. 7618 were screened out.

*That leaves 774 children who were reported as possible victims of maltreatment who on average 99 days later would be recieve services from the state of Maine.

Multi-billion dollar corporation General Dynamics/ Bath Iron Works will wait far less time to know if they'll receive 3 million dollars a year in a cash back tax subsidy.

Three million dollars a year works out to about $3800 a year to pay for services for each of those 774 children screened in as maltreated. A 99 day wait period- on average – is hideous.

So to get back to Senator Thibodeau and Senator Dow sponsoring 3 million in BIW cash tax rebates, why not spend it on saving children's lives and bringing them services soon after someone calls suspecting child maltreatment? There is not enough money for both.

Does it have to wait until someone realizes "That's Senator Thibodeau's and Representative Ward's district. That happened in Senator Dow's district, the chair of the Taxation Committe who strong-armed everyone into giving 3 million dollars in year-end retirment contribution/bonus money to the 5 ^th largest weapons maker in the world." I have worked with children and adolescents since 1976. I do not know what a diary of these children in the last weeks of their lives would say. I do know that 3800 dollars a year that might pay for a once a week home visit for each child would go a long way toward preventing their deaths. That amount would cover the same service for the other 774 children tagged as being maltreated in 2016. Favoring corporations over 774 children tagged as maltreated is indifference. Not to corporations but to children.

This Political Year of Women: Smears, Cheap Shots and Character -Susan Cook- If you missed the smearing, cheap shots and character assassination against women this year, and one woman in particular, maybe you were cut off from earth-bound communication. This year was ‘proof’ strategies flourish, to undermine the credibility and judgment of women- no matter how many credentials she’s acquired, critical responsibilities she’s taken on or professional advances she’s made. If someone wants to reduce her through name-calling, lie invention, Facebook reputation smearing that she has poor judgment, is a crook, controlling, a substance abuser, indifferent to sexual assault, all they have to do is start saying it. Put it on Twitter, editorialize it in the local newspaper, or post it on Facebook. There you have it. Like a public offering traded on the stock market, the smearing gains value the more it’s traded. It is doesn’t matter if you are Hillary Clinton. Or Madeline Albright or it could be you or it could be me. The G-force is heightened when other women take part in it. If you are a woman who criticizes the prevailing regime in this country, that only men become President- you are an attacker. If women join in, it amplifies the case that you are. Stunningly though, permission for smearing and discrediting of a woman- ‘trial by the court of public opinion’ one Party chair called it to justify a smear campaign he actively took part in- ’taking out to the woodshed’ another Party Chair called it- is shored up by gender-bias. Stereotypes that demean women and give others- including men -permission to keep her in her place, discredit her or not trust her are the archetypes summoned by the fury of the smearing. Even though 59 percent of women in this country identify themselves as feminists, there is a blind spot that hides the fact that spontaneous and willing engagement in sexist smearing- if you are a woman -is not feminism. This is what Madeline Albright meant when she said there is a special spot in hell for women who do not support other women. If only permission to smear women was old news. It is not. What is still news is the lack of protest against it by other women. Few labeled what we saw this political year as sexist. Few labeled the women who freely engaged in it- many being paid to do so by through their political jobs- as Not Feminist, Traitors to the Core of Feminist Achievement and Belief, and yes, the progenitors of a return to no reproductive rights, more gender pay inequity, and every other public policy that demeans women‘s judgment and her capacity to choose. Feminist political ideology becomes just so much loose cannon talk and no-filter thinking. You know how women are. Directors of Communication, lofty members of the Judicial branch of Government, - an FBI Director, Attorney General and yes members of the Democratic Party either joined in or couldn‘t really think of anything to say. They said nothing. Where have feminists gone and more importantly why did they go. Sometimes I think it is just a time warp because of all the advancement the women‘s movement has brought and everybody‘s forgotten that the necessary condition for feminism to exists acknowledging that gender makes a difference. I was on a train to the Democratic National Convention and spoke with the leader of a very large Feminist organization. I decried the Democratic Party for openly supporting the Independent man instead of the bright, capable female candidate. ‘It‘s ok, ’ she said. ’He’ll still vote with the Democrats.’ It was not, then, nor is it now ok to ignore the gender of a female political candidate. Femaleness still brings a different voice systematically devalued and overlooked in male-dominated cultures. . Female Genital Mutilation remains a culturally accepted practice in Muslim countries. Women still experience gross economic inequity. Carol Gilligan, the Harvard psychologist, who wrote ‘In a Different Voice-’ openly questioned the exclusion of female subjects from studies used to define human development- from National Institute of Health studies of heart disease to studies of moral development, male experience was routinely seen as equivalent to human. Women’s decision-making about right and wrong is often defined by violations of care for others and one’s self and connection as central to moral awareness. This political year brought back exclusion of women by women . They overlooked gender as a critical political consideration. Carol Gilligan was chosen the first Ms. Magazine ‘Woman of the Year’. She quoted a student of hers who said women become the float in relationship to men-and male culture- the variation in what they think and choose dependent on what males think and choose. Of course, we tend to think women have come a long way from the days when women were humiliated or shamed or bullied into accommodating male beliefs and thinking. I am afraid we have returned to a time when bullying and shaming is the preferred cultural tool for changing what women think. A New York Times columnist editorialized about ‘What Women Lost’ in this political year. I’m not sure that we’ve lost anything. Rather the permission to bully and discredit women has been there all along. This year we had a National stage for it and a male candidate and his team particularly well-versed in pursuing it. And maybe we’ve all just returned to not noticing the women are missing. And women becoming ‘the float’ - bullied, called out as untrustworthy loose cannons and liars, - who change their minds depending on male decisions- like the student Carol Gilligan quoted- that was me - said.