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Yes, Gramsci. I think conjugal visitation is a crock. But even if it
weren't, there is no reason to give them conjugal visitation rights. And if you're going to take the right away from the murderers, you have to take the right away from the boosters, the drug dealers, the rapists, the embezzlers, the extortionists, etc. Can't be playing favorites, especially in the United States.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 20, 2007 at 8:58 PM
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Saul
Would you really deny conjugal rights to a guy that pinches a car?
posted by
Antipodean
on April 20, 2007 at 5:46 PM
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I don't care if they watch television, ladychardonnay, but I resent the
fact that they get conjugal rights and get to attend college courses on the public dole. Some of these people are better educated than I am. But I was awarded academic scholarships for my academic achievements. I didn't boost a car, rape three women, or murder the postman and get rewarded with a doctorate. No, my postgraduate work is still being paid for -- by myself. Student loans are a good portion of my monthly bills. And my tax money goes to educating the scum of the earth? Ridiculous. If an inmate wishes to become educated while in prison, they should have to foot the damned bill like everyone else.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 20, 2007 at 9:27 AM
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You are absolutely right, Tonyzonit, on all counts. But if the choice is
denied, then you guarantee more children born into bad situations, lives, etc. One day, someday, medical science will progress to the point where they'll be able to artificially grow an embryo. When it does, then by by all means, if the procedure for extraction is safe, make it against the law to conceive and abort. But given that you are talking about human beings with human problems, women as willing or unwilling incubators, then it better they have the choice. And I agree that pregnancies, if terminated, should be done as early as possible.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 20, 2007 at 9:20 AM
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I don't believe, Gramsci, that there are many rehabilitative programs that
work. However, I do believe that preventive education and rehabilitation are becoming more and more important. Since criminality is predominantly a learned behavior (no one is born with a 'criminal' gene -- I hope), we have to find more effective means of combatting criminal behavior and, once crimes have been committed, of rehabilitating the perpetrators and reassimilating them back into the prevailing social structure.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 20, 2007 at 9:14 AM
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as far as i am concerned
prisoners are given way too many rights in the first place. i always thought that prisons were supposed to hard terrible places that people never wanted to go to. now they can have sex, get degrees, and watch cable television.
posted by
ladychardonnay
on April 20, 2007 at 7:14 AM
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Saul - I agree with you but, as with other abortions, they should
be carried out as early as possible, and then I don't see where the controversy would lie. If it is left too long, then there becomes more and more moral responsibility to let the fetus be born. The argument that the baby shouldn't be born because it comes from bad stock or into bad surroundings may be strong, but what is the alternative? It would take a brave (and fascist) society to seriously make an attempt to reduce the children born into poverty and ignorance. We have to accept their right to live - but policies that encourage the limitation of the growth of the poor all over the world should be pursued that are not too cuel - the debate goes on about what those policies are. (The rich, of course, don't procreate at the same rate and therefore are not a cause of overpopulation... although they are disproportionately responsible for the unsustainable use of the earth's resources, pollution and other ill effects.)
posted by
Antonionioni
on April 20, 2007 at 7:09 AM
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But Saul
When I did high school work experience - many, many moons ago - I sat in a magistrates court in Sydney while one petty offender after the other was walked through and sentenced. Two years gaol for one, a good behaviour bond and a criminal record for another. To a person they could have been rehabilitated had there not been crushing economic pressures weighing them down.
posted by
Antipodean
on April 20, 2007 at 12:55 AM
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Very idealistic, Gramsci, but, forgive me, I cannot be as
egalitarian as our dear Mr. Debs with regard to a greater portion of our criminal element...
posted by
saul_relative
on April 20, 2007 at 12:34 AM
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Saul
With a few exceptions, I'm not afraid of the people that the capitalist system chooses to lock-up and discard. They're welcome in my political organisation any day...
Eugene V. Debs, an American socialist said the following: 'Your honour, years ago I recognised my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free...'
posted by
Antipodean
on April 20, 2007 at 12:13 AM
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Nothing living, Dylan, would ever choose to cease living, if given the
choice. It is the one biological imperative -- to survive. However, a fetus requires a period where it is symbiotically dependent on the mother. Therefore, I believe the mother has the choice to terminate.
Don't get me wrong, Dylan. I do not agree with abortion (except in cases of incest, rape, or knowledge of debilitating birth defects or diseases), personally. But I believe it is the prospective mother who has a right to choose termination of a pregnancy or not, my personal thoughts aside. Ultimately, it is her body that is being used to gestate the fetus. With regard to prisoners' abortion rights, giving female inmates these rights adds a layer of social protection from its worst element.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 19, 2007 at 11:14 PM
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Thanks, afzal.
posted by
saul_relative
on April 19, 2007 at 10:51 PM
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I very respectfully disagree.
I don't think we can wisely say that abortion is desirable because in some cases it stops lives that would have been poorly lived. A poor life is still a life, it still has whatever value we attach to life, and in any case it's not for us to decide for someone else whether he or she will live or die. Pro-choicers say it's not for us to decide if a woman continues a pregnancy, but I don't think it's for anyone -- even a pregnant woman -- to decide if a fetus lives or dies. Once the fetus exists, it becomes a human being worthy of some legal consideration (the exact limits are subject to debate). The problem with the pro-choice position is that in the name of personal choice it chooses for someone else, namely a child who might (if he could yet speak, think) choose life.
posted by
Dyl_Pickle
on April 19, 2007 at 6:38 PM
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You are right . Good post.
posted by
afzal50
on April 19, 2007 at 5:28 PM
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