Sympathy for Farm Worker

I feel deep sympathy for Francisca Maria Jimenez Sanchez, the Ventura County woman who is on trial for drowning her baby.

This 22-year-old farm worker obviously had no care or concern all through her first pregnancy. She had to keep it a secret. She had the same nausea, growing clumsiness, weary waiting, labor contractions and pain that all pregnant women have, only no one supported her. She had to get permission to leave the onion fields to go to the latrine because she was having a “stomach ache.” There she delivered a baby all alone. Had someone accompanied her, there would have been no drowning.

I do not condone the death of the helpless infant by this frantic and frightened new mother. Rather, I see it as a contrast to my daughter’s pregnancy and delivery with all the family’s concern and love and waiting and excitement over the birth of a child.

The future of (Sanchez) depends on the courts, but on us lies the responsibility for the future of hundreds of other women who need free prenatal clinics, education, information on birth control, and availability of affordable contraception.

ELDA SODERQUIST, Thousand Oaks