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| Can prisons take care of pregnant women? |
| By baystatebanner.com - Rachel Roth |
| Published: 11/16/2011 |
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As the Massachusetts Legislature considers this year’s crop of criminal justice reform bills, one that has not gotten much attention is a measure to ensure proper treatment of pregnant women in jail and prison. Improving the medical treatment and protecting the constitutional rights of these women is vitally important and would contribute to the Commonwealth’s goal of reducing health disparities, because prison policies have a disproportionate impact on poor women and African American women. Medical neglect of incarcerated women in the United States is all too common, and can have tragic results. Prisons and jails often fail to provide adequate prenatal care, creating anxiety among pregnant women and jeopardizing birth outcomes. Corrections personnel — medical staff as well as corrections officers — fail to diagnose women with ectopic pregnancies, leading to emergency surgery and lifelong infertility. In some cases, the result of this negligence is the woman’s death. Similarly, personnel fail to recognize the signs of labor, leading to complications and to women giving birth locked in their cells without any assistance, let alone trained medical assistance. These are serious problems that threaten the pregnancies, health, and lives of women who have been mandated into the state’s custody. When the government incarcerates someone, it assumes responsibility for that person’s welfare. This is a constitutional obligation as well as an ethical one. Without explicit laws to protect women’s rights and to ensure some regular means of government oversight, women are left to fend for themselves. But the reality of incarceration severely constrains people’s ability to advocate for their interests — to gather information about medical issues, communicate with the outside world or assert their rights. The ever-greater numbers of women in custody reinforce the need for active state oversight of gender-specific medical care to meet pregnant women’s needs. In 1992, the year that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections agreed to a court settlement to improve conditions for pregnant women, 437 women were held at MCI-Framingham.Today, Framingham holds 684 women — almost one-third of whom are awaiting trial, half because they cannot afford even $50 bail. Read More. |
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