Born in Chains- US has the world's largest female prison population – but no plan for pregnancies

[midnight]

Thanks to the war on drugs, and a general 30-year-long incarceration binge, the number of women in prison has increased by over 400%, to the point where America can now make the not-so-proud boast of having the largest female prison population in the world. The vast majority of these women are not only non-violent first-time offenders, they are frequently the victims of violence themselves, and their crimes are often crimes of addiction, either stealing to buy the substance of that addiction, or simply being caught in possession of it. Needless to mention, women of color are far more likely to end up in prison than their white counterparts.

Yet, however deserving of jail time convicted women may or may not be, their unborn children have done nothing to earn a prison sentence. And they, at the very least, deserve the chance to good-quality pre- and post-natal care, as well as a dignified birth.

For most babies born in prison, these inalienable rights are little more than a pipe dream. In 2010, the National Women's Law Center and the Rebecca Project issued a report called Mothers behind Bars, a state-by-state report card on the treatment of incarcerated pregnant women and their babies. The report graded each state on three areas: pre-natal care, shackling policies and alternatives to incarceration. Even by the low standard of care for inmates one comes to expect from the US prison system, the conclusions are shocking.

Nearly half the states received an overall failing grade, and over two thirds received a failing grade for their lack of pre-natal care. Forty-nine out of 50 states fail to even report all incarcerated women's pregnancies and their outcomes; 43 states do not require medical examinations as a component of pre-natal care; and 36 states still engage in the barbaric practice of shackling pregnant women, often with ankle, wrist and belly chains, before, after and sometimes even during labor.http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/26-1

[midnight]

1. If anyone every needed proof their was a war on women this is a good example....

[malcolmkyle]

2. Please Vote To Acquit!

It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.

When governments prohibit drugs they effectively and knowingly hand a monopoly on their sale to dangerous criminals and terrorists. Without a legal framework in which to operate, these black-market entities can always be expected to settle their disputes violently, while terrorizing many peaceful and innocent citizens in the process. Were the users of alcohol to blame for the St Valentines massacre in 1929? Of course not! It is just as naive to assume that one can compel all the users of Marijuana, Cocaine, or Meth to simply quit, as it is to assume that all the users of Alcohol should have stopped drinking after the introduction of alcohol prohibition in 1919.

Nobody can be expected to obey bad laws, like ones that infringe on logic as well as the fundamental right to decide on what medicine or poison an individual adult may, or may not, ingest. The violence and the deaths ultimately arising from such bad public policy should always rest squarely on the shoulders of those ignorant imbeciles who are responsible for implementing and supporting such foolishness.

If you support prohibition then you support bank-rolling criminals and terrorists. There's simply no other logical way of looking at it.

[Spryguy]

3. Federal law...

they should make it a Federal law, offering any incarcerated woman either the option to have a free abortion OR go free on bond until 3 months after the pregnancy is completed, and then return to jail when it is said and done.