The Times podcast: The sketchy test sending moms to prison

LA Times
·1 min read
A flotation test is performed at Mexico City's Institute of Forensic Science. In this case, the lungs float.
A flotation test is performed at Mexico City's Institute of Forensic Science. In this case, the lungs float.

There's a test used across Latin America to determine whether a baby was born dead or alive. And depending on the result, it could allow prosecutors to bring murder charges against mothers who might have had a still-born birth. And there's an even bigger problem. This test is 400 years old and very unreliable.

Today, how the so-called flotation test is sending women to prison for killing their newborns, even when they say they're innocent. Read the full transcript here.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: L.A. Times foreign correspondent Leila Miller

More reading:

An unreliable 400-year-old test is sending mothers to prison for killing their newborns

Across Latin America, abortion restrictions are being loosened

Thousands of feminists march in Mexico City: ‘I am scared to simply be a woman in Mexico’

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.