The following horror story was told by former prisoner Tonier Cain-Muldrow to Vice in January:
In September, Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella reported on a pregnant woman named Pamela Winn who was a federal prisoner in Georgia in the early 2000s. Winn’s wrists and ankles were regularly shackled during transport, which is obviously not ideal for expecting women. During one of those transports, Winn fell while trying to climb into a van.
Winn, who was about six weeks pregnant at the time, lost the baby.
There are many stories like these. Why is something so inhumane even happening?
Why is a country like the United States shackling pregnant women in the first place?
That’s the question Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., seeks to address with his bipartisan Pregnant Women in Custody Act of 2018, introduced on Wednesday along with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The bill seeks to protect the health and safety of pregnant women in federal custody and, according to Paul’s press release ,would end the practice of using “restraints and restrictive housing on pregnant federal inmates and incentivize states to adopt similar practices by leveraging existing federal assistance programs.” This Senate legislation is the companion bill to the House’s Pregnant Women in Custody Act introduced by Reps. Karen Bass, D-Calif., and Mia Love, R-Utah.
Paul and Gillibrand say that about 2,000 births occur in the U.S. each year while women are in custody. These women are shackled in some form in the overwhelming majority of these cases. The American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics reports, “The United States has the highest incarceration rate of women in the world, with over 205,000 women currently behind bars in either state and federal prisons or jails and another million on probation or parole.” Obviously that’s many women at both the federal and state level subject to potentially being shackled during pregnancy and, heartbreakingly, even childbirth.
Literally adding insult to injury, how many of these women are in prison for nonviolent offenses?
The AMA also notes that most prisons are set up primarily for men and often fail to meet the basic health needs of women. You have situations where prison guards are thinking more like law enforcement officers as opposed to healthcare givers, which most are not obviously equipped for. “[Shackling] poses a risk of serious harm to the woman’s fetus, including the potential for miscarriage,” the ACLU notes. “During labor, delivery and postpartum recovery, shackling can interfere with appropriate medical care and be detrimental to the health of the mother and her newborn child.”
Besides this being an obvious injustice no matter where you land on the political spectrum or one’s views of abortion, those of us who are pro-life also believe in fostering a culture of life. Banning this cruel practice certainly falls under that mission.
This is a pro-life bill with the potential for widespread bipartisan support.
“While debates over the best ways to address problems in our criminal justice system have been occurring for years, there are some reforms that are just common sense, like protecting the health of pregnant incarcerated women and their unborn children,” Paul said.
“An incarcerated individual is still a human being whose life deserves to be valued and protected, which is why our proposal prohibits the use of restraints on pregnant federal inmates, particularly when they are in labor, and ensures these women are treated with compassion and respect as they bring new life into the world,” Paul added.
“This inhumane and archaic treatment of pregnant women and new mothers is why I am proud to introduce the Pregnant Women in Custody Act of 2018,” said Gillibrand.
Let’s hope this passes — women, incarcerated or not, deserve better.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
