Lynsay Skiba is the Reigle Human Rights Fellow at Justice Now. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she focused her studies on human rights law.
Many people who are pregnant inside California’s women’s prisons experience some form of mistreatment on a daily basis: they are deprived of basic information about their pregnancy; they lack access to responsive and consistent medical and mental health care; they endure degrading treatment at the hands of some prison staff; they lack control over important lifestyle choices impacting pregnancy such as diet and physical activity; and they are forced to cope with the prospect of being separated form their newborn shortly after birth, in some cases permanently.
Driving this mistreatment is the prison system’s apathetic and punishment-driven approach toward people in prison and their medical and mental health needs. What this means is that while people in women’s prisons who do not experience physical or mental problems during their pregnancies may receive treatment and experience medical outcomes that are unremarkable by accepted medical standards, those who have physical complications, mental health problems, or who choose to challenge their treatment are vulnerable to serious consequences, including death.
Using a participatory model of human rights documentation, Justice Now partners with those most impacted by these issues – people inside the two state prisons that house pregnant people – to expose pregnancy-related abuses through an international human rights framework. Together we have found that these prisons consistently violate the human rights to family, information, health, bodily integrity, dignified treatment, life, and the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
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Did anyone else read the (I think it was NY Times) article a few years ago about women being chained to their beds in the hospital during labor because people were afraid they'd TRY TO ESCAPE? and about them being given only aspirin for pain giving birth?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/national/02shackles.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1210850075-eUfc+J4uiJexyb64oOEjrA
Yes, I have written about that phenomenon on here, too. I am sorry it took me so long to comment, I should have commented when I originally read this entry, but feministing.com was not allowing me on the server and could only read it through my feeder. I wonder if other would be commenters had this problem?
I know incarcerated women in Miami Dade are shackled during labor. I have talked to a labor nurse who used to work at the hospital that delivers for the prison system. She spoke about them in a very dehumanized way, saying that she was glad they were shackled or they would bite or hurt her. Women who are not incarcerated can bite or hit during labor, too. I am pretty sure there can be different treatment depending on the woman's behavior, but I find the shackling to be inhumane and would doubt it would be necessary for most women.
I am trying desperately to get my Ob/Gyn residency at that hospital, and I want to spend time with incarcerated pregnant women. Maybe I can make a difference. I am going to research to see if there is a great organization like Justice Now in Miami for me to work with, but unfortunately, I doubt it.