On April 9, 2020, after Shirley Scarborough referred to as the prayer line like she did each morning, when she went to work she bought a name from the police division in Richmond, Virginia. In a assembly, they mentioned her youngest daughter, Francesca Harris-Scarborough, had been killed the evening earlier than. Police had discovered the 31-year-old’s automobile nonetheless idling.
Scarborough’s daughter, who was three months pregnant, had been shot twice within the coronary heart.
“I wasn’t ready for it. I lost control of everything,” Scarborough mentioned. “Everything went blank.”
Francesca is a component of a horrible development within the United States: Homicide is the No. 1 manner pregnant girls die, research has lengthy shown. A brand new study revealed Monday in JAMA Network Open exhibits pregnant girls are much more susceptible than different girls of childbearing age when there’s a gun concerned.
The research checked out greater than 7,000 homicides of girls of childbearing age between 2018 to 2021 and located that pregnant girls skilled a 37% higher firearm murder price than girls who aren’t pregnant. More than two-thirds of pregnancy-associated homicides concerned firearms.
Research has lengthy proven that the presence of a firearm is a key risk issue of intimate associate murder. The new research confirmed that each 1% enhance in state-level firearm possession was considerably related to a 6% enhance in all-cause and eight% enhance in firearm-specific murder price in pregnant girls, even after adjusting for different components.
“Even incremental increases in firearm availability may contribute to measurable increases in homicide risk in pregnant women,” the research concludes.
“It was really not surprising, if you think about it, that if firearms are more available, then that certainly it does increase your risk of homicide in general,” mentioned research co-author Dr. Lois Lee, a senior school advisor, Office and Health Equity & Inclusion and an affiliate professor of pediatrics and emergency medication at Harvard Medical School. “So you could imagine, if you take away or at least decrease the number of firearms, then there would likely be many fewer deaths during pregnancy.”
“And unlike medical conditions, which, yes, we do have many medical advances and can save many lives, but in some ways, those conditions are much less preventable, like eclampsia and sepsis,” Lee added. “This is predictable and potentially preventable.”
By age group, the best proportion of homicides in pregnant girls was amongst these ages 20 to 24 years previous. For girls who weren’t pregnant, it was ages 25 to 29. Most homicides victims have been Black, whether or not they have been pregnant or not.
“Those findings suggest that these risks of homicide during pregnancy are shaped not just by individual factors, but by broader systems of inequity and structural racism,” Lee mentioned. “So it’s not just a solution at the individual level that’s needed, but there needs to be urgent change at a policy level as well.”
The research suggests secure storage legal guidelines and home violence firearm prohibitions.
Dr. Kelly Roskam, director of regulation and coverage on the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, didn’t work on the brand new research and mentioned that whereas most states prohibit folks with closing protecting orders from buying or possessing firearms, such legal guidelines must be expanded to require folks to give up their firearms even when there’s an emergency protecting order on the books.
“Usually the first stage of that order process is often the most dangerous time for individuals experiencing intimate partner or family violence, since it is usually the first indication that an individual is going to be separating from an abuser,” Roskam mentioned.
Roskam mentioned probably the most profitable gun give up legal guidelines even have robust comply with up. She factors to a program in King County, Washington, that created a multi-disciplinary team of prosecutors, regulation enforcement, and courtroom directors that serve on a regional home violence firearm unit that scours courtroom paperwork and databases to verify each particular person concerned in a home violence offense provides up each firearm. According to King County, firearms are utilized in home violence homicides greater than all different weapons mixed in Washington state, and analysis exhibits the risk of murder for girls will increase sharply when a firearm is current in a home violence scenario.
“They really show respondents that they are very serious about ensuring this firearm relinquishment compliance. And since they have started doing this, they have been recovering a much larger number of firearms from these protective orders,” Roskam mentioned.
Scarborough has been engaged on her personal packages in order that extra girls are spared her daughter’s destiny. She created a nonprofit referred to as Cry Loud, Spare Not, Speak Up that’s devoted to empowering girls affected by home violence and abuse in Virginia.
In studying her daughters’ journals after her loss of life, Scarborough mentioned she realized that whereas her daughter was profitable and appeared comfortable, she had confidence points that began when she was youthful. Scarborough began a program for women ages 12 and up to domesticate vanity and develop their confidence.
Each yr, close to the anniversary of Francesca’s loss of life, Shirley additionally hosts one other empowerment program for women and girls referred to as “I Am Enough, I Know My Worth.”
“This way she will never die, we can always try to help somebody,” Scarborough mentioned. “Her death has really been my teacher. It’s changed my life, it will never be the same.”