The O’Collegian

An English and women’s studies professor compared the case of Theresa Hernandez, who was prosecuted for murder, to a new television series in a Tuesday lecture.

Hernandez was the first Oklahoma woman prosecuted for murder after she delivered a stillborn baby in 2004.  The state charged Hernandez  with her baby’s death  because she used methamphetamine.

Carol Mason compared the case to an AMC series titled “Breaking Bad.”

“This issue is important because the public needs to be educated about the medical misinformation involved in the case as well as the cultural assumptions behind it,” Mason said.

Mason is in her second year at OSU and is the university’s only full-time women’s studies professor.

About 50 people attended the lecture, which was held in room Case Study 1 in the Student Union. The philosophy organization Friends of the Forms hosted the event.

“Dr. Mason was chosen as a speaker prior to this semester,” Friends of the Forms president Shannon Werner said. “We really enjoy her and her presence so we thought of her as one of our first choices.”

Mason will be teaching a course titled Race and Reproduction during the spring 2009 semester.

The next Friends of the Forms lecture will take place March 25.

“One of the main goals of Friends of the Forms is to enhance the climate of OSU’s academic community by scheduling a series of talks open to the public so that others could become aware of the research interests of OSU faculty and graduate students and discuss topics of academic interest,” philosophy professor Dr. Michael Taylor said.

The television series “Breaking Bad” premiered Jan. 20 on AMCTV. The main character is Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston according to http://www.amctv.com. White is a high school chemistry teacher who creates a meth lab with a former student to financially support his family  after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

Hernandez, 31, was arrested in September 2004 and charged with first and second degree murder after suffering a stillbirth believed to be connected with meth use, according to Mason. However, doctors involved with the case found no medical link between the use of methamphetamines and stillbirth, according to a court brief on http://www.drugpolicy.com.

“The ‘crack baby’ scare of the 1980s and, more recently, fears of ‘meth babies’ were based on ‘insufficient and inaccurate information’ that caused society to overreact,” said Barry Lester, who is a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Brown University Center for Study of Children at Risk, in a November article in The Daily Oklahoman.

Hernandez spent three years in an Oklahoma county jail prior to a hearing, which was held Dec. 21. At this hearing, the judge sentenced Hernandez to 15 years in prison.

“If you’re going to imprison a woman for delivering a still-birth, you’re opening up a big can of worms because no woman can guarantee the outcome of a pregnancy,” Mason said.