© Melissa WantaAlicia Beltran, 28, of Jackson, Wisc., went to a prenatal visit -- and ended up in handcuffs.
When Alicia Beltran was 12 weeks pregnant, she took herself to a health clinic about a mile from her home in Jackson, Wis., for a prenatal checkup. But what started as a routine visit ended with Beltran eventually handcuffed and shackled in government custody - and at the center of a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state's fetal protection law.
On July 2, Beltran, 28, met with a physician's assistant at West Bend Clinic at Saint Joseph's Hospital in West Bend, Wis., for her prenatal visit. When asked to detail her medical history, Beltran admitted a past struggle with the painkiller Percocet. But that was all behind her, Beltran said: She had been taking Suboxone, a drug used to treat Percocet dependency. Lacking health insurance and unable to afford the medication, Beltran had used an acquaintance's prescription and self-administered the drug in decreasing doses. She had taken her last dose a few days before her prenatal visit.
According to Beltran, the physician's assistant recommended she renew her use of Suboxone under a doctor's supervision. After Beltran declined, she said she was asked to take a drug test, which was negative for all substances except Suboxone.
Two weeks later, a social worker visited Beltran at home and told her that she needed to continue Suboxone treatment under the care of a physician, said Beltran, who again declined. Two days later, Beltran found police officers at her home, who arrested and handcuffed her.
According to the police report, the officers took Beltran to a hospital, where she underwent a doctor's exam. Her pregnancy was found to be healthy and normal, her lawyers say. Police then took her to Washington County Jail to await a hearing - hours later, she was led into a courtroom, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, where a county judge ordered her to spend 90 days in a drug treatment center.
"Alicia had no idea she was giving information to the physician's assistant that would ultimately be used against her in a court of law," said Linda Vanden Heuvel of Germantown, Wis., one of Beltran's attorneys. "She should not have to fear losing her liberty because she was pregnant and she was honest with her doctor."
Comment: Hedges writes, "If a nonviolent popular movement is able to ideologically disarm the bureaucrats, civil servants and police - to get them, in essence, to defect - nonviolent revolution is possible."
This is a big 'if', given that no such movement exists. 'Revolution' is an interesting choice of word for the type of widespread political and socio-economic change that many seek: a complete revolution is a movement that takes something, in this case masses of people, from one state... all the way back around to that same state!
And here we can learn from human history that life on planet Earth is a merry-go-round: it never stops, and although it changes forms, it keeps repeating the same essential dynamics.
What it comes down to for each individual is the question: what does change mean for you? Do you REALLY want change? Are you really sick of this ride yet?