Woman on death row gets pregnant

Good morning,

Did you hear about the
woman on Viet Nam’s death row
who had been held in solitary confinement for a year and got pregnant?


Gee, I wonder how that happened.


Aside from her pregnancy, three big things stand out to me about that story.

Point 1.
Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Point 2.
The woman was set to face a firing squad for possessing approximately $63,000 of heroin.

Point 3.
She went to trial last year and already has had an appeal hearing.

Here are my thoughts about those three points:
Now, I’m not a drug traficker or advocate for them, but that kind of penalty (Point 1) is one to get my attention and make me weigh my options if I had been. The price of doing business in this profession are pretty steep and if you’re not ready to pay that penalty, get out of the business.


Call me a chicken, but I couldn’t take that trade off.

Now, as for her specific penalty:

First, she said that her life was worth only $63,000 of smack (Point 2). What a low valuation of life.

Secondly, the justice system in Viet Nam is swift and moves without any apparent bogs (Point 3). I have no idea if it is a fair system, but that is a very efficient speed. I just don’t know the effectiveness of it, whether it provides the opportunity for innocent people to keep from being swept up in the swiftness of it.

OGV