Escape Plan Or Seizure Of An Opportunity?

When I read this "Oddly Enough" article that appeared on my RSS Feed, I was expecting it to be about a prisoner in the U.S.. I was surprised to see the photo of the silouetted figure of an Asian-looking woman, doing, what looks to be, standing and reading a book in a small prison cell.

Apparently, Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, convicted of possessing 1 billion dong (about $63,000) worth of heroin, had been in solitary confinement for almost a year in a Vietnamese prison. She tested positive, according to one doctor, for the right hormones, when she was 11 weeks into the pregnancy.

Very unfortunately for this soon-to-be mommy, the punishment for trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is a crime punishable by death or life's confinement in prison. She lost her appeal against the death sentence and was due to face a firing squad this year.

Nguyen's husband was serving a jail sentence in another prison in some other part of the country, according to the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper where this story originally was found, before Reuter posted it to the RSS world.

There supposedly was a question as to how Nguyen became pregnant while in solitary confinement. I'm not sure if that is really an intelligent question.

My question is will she be given the pardon, now that there is a life inside her bpdy. What was the nature of this unborn child's birth? Was it a mutually desired act? Was the act planned or was it spontaneous? Was she forced?

Will that unborn child stay alive long enough to enter into the world? If the child is born, then what will be this child's name?

How did Nguyen end up with 1 billion dong of heroin in her possession? Was that the first time? Was she actually consciously trafficking in that commodity, or was she an unwitting mule?

I think I want to believe that she was a desparate woman who took a risk because she thought it was the right thing to do at the time. We can always look at ourselves and say that we are victims of something. We are victims of our times. We are victims of genetics. We are victims of corporate power. We are victims of "God's Plan". We are victims of circumstance. However, I would like to think that we have some choice in the matter, that we are given the ability to think consciously and make decisions based on that ability. We are not just feathers in the wind, even when it seems that way.

- docrivs (blog website email)