June 28, 2024 • 19 mins
Vanessa Tyler investigates the lack of quality care for pregnant women who are incarcerated, and the healthcare deficiencies in our justice system.
Special guest: Kimberly Haven, Executive Director of Reproductive Justice Inside.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I really thought I was gonna die, Like I really
thought I was about to die.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
She lived, but her baby didn't. Pregnant and giving birth
in jail.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm screaming, asking for help, begging for somebody to help me,
telling them to get me out of the cell.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The horrors of giving birth behind bars and some of
the inhumane treatment that comes with it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
If you give birth, are you in a state where
you are shackled? Are you in a birth in a
state where you can give birth with your mom, your aunt,
your the baby's father, a birth coach, or do you
have a correction office at the top of your head
and one looking up your legs while you're delivering your child.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In labor, in agony, in jail, insane? The baby is
coming now on black Land and now as a brown person,
you just feel so invisible where we're from.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Brothers and sisters, are welcome you to this joyful day
we celebrate freedom where we are.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Wow, I know someone's heard something and where we're going.
We the people means all the people. The Black Information
Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm screaming, asking for help, begging for somebody to help me,
telling them to get me out of the cell, you know,
take me to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Everybody completely ignored me. You heard Erika Thompson at the top.
Back in twenty twenty one, she was pregnant and reportedly
picked up for a violation of probation for a traffic citation.
She gave birth to little Ava in her cell in
the Alachua, Florida County jail. The newborn was early, maybe
as much as three months, in pain and screaming for help,
(01:41):
something jail officials Deny. Officials also say as she was
being prepped to go to the hospital the baby arrived.
The baby was in distress. Little Ava didn't make it.
Pregnant and incarcerated two worlds that should not collide. But
increasingly more black women are giving birth while in custody,
(02:02):
and that could mean she is shackled, handcuffed while her
baby is being born. Kimberly Haven is the executive director
of Reproductive Justice Inside, an organization fighting for the dignity
of pregnant women behind bars.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Kimberly welcome, Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Vanessa.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
What is it like inside for a woman who is pregnant?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The lack of adequate prenatal care is appalling. Add to that,
if you are somebody who has made the decision about
if one and how you want to have a family,
and you want to seek an abortion, that is routinely
denied to you. If you give birth, are you in
a state where you are shackled? Are you in a
(02:47):
birth in a state where you can give birth with
your mom, your aunt, the baby's father, a birth coach,
or do you have a correctional office at the top
of your head and one looking up your legs while
you're delivering your child? And then do you get to
bond with a child, or is a child taken away
from you? Do you get an opportunity to have those
precious moments or breastfeed or a breast pump And so
(03:10):
it really is a very huge, multi layered issue that
doesn't get attention, primarily because we don't think about people
being pregnant while they're incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And increasingly that number is going up. You mentioned abortion,
and especially in states southern states where abortion has virtually
been wiped out, it's not even an option for many women,
so they are forced to continue that pregnancy behind bars.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yes, and actually it's not just in our southern states.
If you are even in some of our more progressive states,
and I'll use Maryland for a perfect example, they don't
tell you upon confirmation of your pregnancy test, these are
your options, and so you because there's a long held
ideology of people that are incarcerated that you are in
(04:03):
fact property of your state. For instance, if you get
a tattoo, you could be charged with the destruction of
property of state property. So you falsely work under the
assumption that you can't access an abortion. Now Maryland, abortion
is a protected right. However, if they don't tell you
about it, and you don't know to ask, then you
(04:23):
are going to carry that child to term if you
are in a southern state, perfect example, if you haven't
been convicted of a crime, you've merely been accused of
a crime. Therefore you should be able to travel to
seek the reproductive health care that you want. But if
you're being held because we have some of the most
horrible and draconian bail laws, then you can't access that.
(04:49):
If you're sentenced in your state says nope, we don't
believe an abortion. You're out of luck. You are in
fact out of luck. It's this multi leveled, multi layered
nightmare that individuals don't know how to navigate. Advocates struggle
with having to navigate.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
As for Erica Thompson, at the time, she decided to
sue the Alachua County Sheriff's Department and hired civil rights
attorney Ben Crump to represent her. Here's his news conference
back in twenty twenty one. He says, the jail broke
the law, not getting her help and not saving her baby.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
As we understand that this is the first test of
the saint long known as the Tammy Jackson that to
see if they're gonna hold the attendant sellers accountful.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ben Crump mentioned the Tammy Jackson Act, named after a
woman who was held in the Broward County, Florida jail
for a trespassing and drug possession charge whose story is
so horrendous. She says, for seven hours she was in
labor calling for help, and when her baby came, she
had to crouch down to catch her infant. Listen as
(05:59):
she explains what's hard to even imagine. It was horrifying.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
It was horrifying when she felt I had to bend
out like how I'm bendin dow to pick her up
until I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
She tells her newborn. She's sorry because the infant hit
the jail cell floor.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
I didn't even get through before I had her, you know.
And also that she ain't hit the floor. I rather
from a locked be by my side.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
The hospital will have that, as she explains to local
station WPLGTV back in twenty nineteen, what happened to her
caught such statewide and national attention and prompted a law
signed by Governorn DeSantis in twenty twenty that women inmates
in labor must be taken to the hospital. Reportedly, the
(06:46):
guards came in as she was holding her newborn. In
this case, her little girl, Miranda lived Sadly, Tammy Jackson,
who suffered from mental issues, died more than a year
later from an unrelated, undisclosed cause, but her name lives
on in a law to try and prevent what she
went through from happening again. At least that's what it's
(07:06):
meant to do in the state of Florida. We need
something national, We need something federal in terms of how
women are treated behind bars.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
There is some movement, and I applaud some of our
elected officials in DC and I don't say that very often.
I'm not going to lie. But you know, states still
have autonomy, and so you can have a federal law,
but a state could have a different law, and you're
a subject to state law. And while federal law generally
(07:34):
trumps state, it depends on how it's crafted. Usually at
the federal level they will only work on issues related
to individuals that are within the care, custody and control
of the Bureau of Prisons, not state facilities.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I see, how big is the problem? How many pregnant
women would you estimate are now locked up?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We really don't know because institutions don't report out, and
this is something that we're working aggressively to try to
get states to do. The problem is that states will
report out and there's not a uniform way of gathering
that data. So what we want to be able to
look at is did someone come in already with a pregnancy?
(08:18):
Did someone find out that they were pregnant upon admission?
And then when were they released? Were they released at
what point during their incarceration or their pre trial attainment?
Did this result in a live birth? Was an abortion
and option? Was there a miscarriage? Was there a stillbirth?
Whatever all of those things are. But states don't do that.
(08:39):
And when we try to go into states to write
legislation that would require correction departments to do that, they
will work to kill the bill because they don't want
anybody seeing what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Kimberly Haven from Reproductive Justice Inside has been instrumental in
getting states to change what nobody really talks about, working
with lawmakers, educate them about what's really happening, and getting
them to listen to the labor pains and cries of
agony bouncing off the walls of the cells on the inside.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I wrote this bill about not placing pregnant women
in solitary confinement, which is also just a harsher name
for restrictive housing. But that's what they do. And a
woman in one of our western counties actually kept complaining
she was there for a probation violation of all things,
and she kept saying, I'm going into labor, I'm going
(09:31):
into labor, and they kept telling her, no, you're just
in withdrawal. You're trying to get attention. She delivered her
daughter in a dirty jail cell, slid the placenta out
underneath the door in order to get people's attention. Her
daughter was born with an antibiotic resistant staff infection. She
now has a federal lawsuit against the State of Maryland
(09:54):
and against the local jurisdiction because we'd written a law
that said you cannot do this.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Why did you get involved in all of this, Kimberly,
tell us your background.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So I originally got involved because of my own incarceration,
and I got involved beginning with menstrual hygiene. We became
the fifth state because they wrote that bill. We became
the fifth state in the nation to pass menstrual hygiene laws.
But then it was so, now, what do we need
to think about? And pregnancy was always something that is
(10:27):
one of those not talked about issues. And I saw
too many pregnant individuals cycle through And you know, I
know somebody whose child was born who came in and said,
I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant, And they kept saying, no,
you're just fat and sad. Honest to God, that's what
they told the woman, you are just fat and sad. Finally,
about six and a half months, she got a positive
(10:49):
confirmation for pregnancy test, even though she kept asking for
to be retested and her child was born on the spectrum,
and she actually had a an analysis done and it
was based on the care that she got while she
was incarcerated, the care she didn't get while she was incarcerated.
So it wasn't genetic, it was environmental. And so the
(11:12):
more I hear about these stories, the more we not
only look at menstrual hygiene, what we also look at
We've now changed our focus. That's really the reproductive life
span of incarcerated women and girls, because we're also not
talking about menopause. Menopause is part of that reproductive life span, right,
And so every day there's another state that does something
(11:35):
that is just beyond the pale, that is just so egregious,
and I just am thinking how why? And so our
work is not going away. Our work is only amplifying.
And as more and more of these draconian laws are
put back in place and good progressive things are rolled back,
(11:57):
we're going to see more and more impacts on individuals, families,
and communities.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Now, how does menopause play into it, Because of course
we know prisons are designed for men, so are there
things that should be in place for women in menopause
as well as pregnancy.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, I mean again, it's we know that some women
will need estrogen therapy, we know some women will need medications,
but sometimes it's something as simple as making sure she
has a fan, making sure she has actual access to ice.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know, these are things that are no brainers.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think probably the most painful of all is the
way the babies once they are born, whether like you said,
depending on the state, whether there's a correction officer in
the birthing room or not. Once the babies are born,
how they are taken within twenty four to forty eight hours,
and there's no breastfeeding, there's really no bonding at all.
(13:00):
Those issues they're just cruel.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And there's also the problem too that if let's say
you have a five year sentence, you come in find
out you're pregnant, abortion is not an option. You do
not want to choose that path. That is certainly your
right and your agency. But then what are you going
to do with your child? You're denied the opportunity to
(13:23):
plan for it. Can this child go with the baby's father,
Can it go with your mother, your auntie, your sister,
your best friend, and be able to put those things
in place. These are also people that are probably already
on your approved guest lip, you know your guest past.
So if they're already allowed to come into the institution
to see you, why can they not be allowed to
(13:44):
be with you in what is both the most beautiful
thing in somebody's life but also one of the most uncomfortable.
When you're by yourself and you only have mindless faceless
these are not your routine obi uyns. Then you have
correctional officers. You don't know what to expect. You know,
(14:05):
the hospitals are trying to deliver your baby, but they're
not worried about what the policy is, they're not worried
about what the state is. They're also just doing what
they have to do, which is their jobs. But is
that child given the opportunity or you have the ability
to have that child placed on your chest to create
that bonding in those crucial moments after delivery, before your
(14:28):
child is taken away from you or your child goes
home with your family member, right and those play out.
That is emotionally traumatizing to both the infant, to the family,
and to the mother because then she has to go
back and serve the rest of her time without having
had the opportunity to bond with an infant that she's
(14:49):
carried for nine months. That level of trauma is then
not addressed. It is not even recognized within our carceral settings.
And so how does someone way their word through that
trauma while incarcerated without having the tools and the support
to be able to do it? And then how do
(15:10):
you come home with that?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You talked about some of the issues that you have
won and some of the bills that you've written. What's
next on the agenda for our JI?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Well, I think that what we're looking at is we
still want to be able to partner with some of
our states who you know, maybe reaching out because we
wrote the very first in the nation model Pregnancy policy
Manual for incarcerated and that goes from the moment of
a positive confirmation. We put it through COVID, we put
it through release, and it covered every aspect of pregnancy care.
(15:45):
Some states are reaching out and saying what would it
cost to do that? Well, that depends on the healthcare contract,
and healthcare contracts are always going to go to the
lowest bidder. So we broke it out like this is
best practices, this is what at the very least you
should be doing, and then this is what the laws
says that you have to do. And so we want
to be able to work with those states that are
interested in doing that. We also want to be able
(16:07):
to take the legislation and the talking points that we've
been successful with and share that with advocates on the
ground in the different states. But I do think that
we need to work on a national campaign that puts
the highlight on the reproductive lifespan of incarcerated women and girls,
and really be able to force states to report out,
(16:31):
to be able to make their manuals how do you
provide this healthcare? And you can have as a Department
of Corrections a manual, but how are you enforcing that
your healthcare provider is doing it? What's their manual? And
trying to be able to create a national tracking system
for that. That's where I think that OURJI is really
(16:52):
starting to focus now and really trying to build that
out so that in a given moment, someone can say, so,
what does it look like in Maryland versus Louisiana, for instance,
and we would be able to tell them and put
in some reporting bills. Again, I can't I say this
all the time, and I swear Vanessa, I'm going to
have a T shirt made with this. I can't fight
(17:13):
what I can't see, and I can't see what you
won't show me.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
You said that there's a minimum. What is the minimum
that you're finding that at least all fifty states are
doing for pregnant women behind bars.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They will give them prenatal vitamins. That would be the
worst of the worst. Here is some prenatal vitamins. That's it,
and we'll, you know, we'll schedule you to see an
obg U I N with the next time they come in,
and if they order a sonogram, we'll get you a sonogram.
But it's not a There are benchmarks for healthy pregnancies
(17:48):
and healthy maternal outcomes, and if they play fast and
loose with that, then that plays out and potentially it
can be harmful to the individual and to the child.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
How can our listeners help in this battle and help
our sisters behind bars?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
We would love it. They can certainly reach out to
me directly at four four, three, six, nine, two seven eight.
They can, you know, find me at Kimberly at Reproductive
Justice inside dot org. They can visit our website that
we're currently updating because we want to put some of
our trainings up there, and they can also ask what's
(18:27):
happening in their own state. Because if you ask what's
happening in your own state, whether it's at the state
prison or you want to look at a county facility,
get that information and if you you know, want to
reach out to me, I'm happy to craft something that
you can ask the questions, gather that information, and then
feed it back to us so we can figure out
how to work with you and work within your state
(18:49):
for the betterment of our sisters. We're all for it.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Kimberly Haven, thank you for your fight and not forgetting
about the women about to give birth inside.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thank you so much Vanessa for keeping issue up and
again helping us advocate for our sisters and that are
on the inside and for our families and communities on
the outside.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Before I go, I wanted to give Tammy Jackson the
last word. She is no longer alive, dying of an
unrelated cause a year after giving birth alone, no painkillers,
no one rubbing her back or holding her hand, feeding
her ice chips, alone, catching her daughter as she fell
from between her legs onto the cold, hard, filthy floor.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
It isn't a joke when it comes to bring some
and if they don't want to vibe by that, it's fired.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Because I don't believe no woman she really had to
go over that. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Join me next Friday
for a brand new episode of black Land. Like and
subscribe and get it wherever you get your podcasts.
I really thought I was gonna die, Like I really
thought I was about to die.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
She lived, but her baby didn't. Pregnant and giving birth
in jail.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm screaming, asking for help, begging for somebody to help me,
telling them to get me out of the cell.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The horrors of giving birth behind bars and some of
the inhumane treatment that comes with it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
If you give birth, are you in a state where
you are shackled? Are you in a birth in a
state where you can give birth with your mom, your aunt,
your the baby's father, a birth coach, or do you
have a correction office at the top of your head
and one looking up your legs while you're delivering your child.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In labor, in agony, in jail, insane? The baby is
coming now on black Land and now as a brown person,
you just feel so invisible where we're from.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Brothers and sisters, are welcome you to this joyful day
we celebrate freedom where we are.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Wow, I know someone's heard something and where we're going.
We the people means all the people. The Black Information
Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm screaming, asking for help, begging for somebody to help me,
telling them to get me out of the cell, you know,
take me to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Everybody completely ignored me. You heard Erika Thompson at the top.
Back in twenty twenty one, she was pregnant and reportedly
picked up for a violation of probation for a traffic citation.
She gave birth to little Ava in her cell in
the Alachua, Florida County jail. The newborn was early, maybe
as much as three months, in pain and screaming for help,
(01:41):
something jail officials Deny. Officials also say as she was
being prepped to go to the hospital the baby arrived.
The baby was in distress. Little Ava didn't make it.
Pregnant and incarcerated two worlds that should not collide. But
increasingly more black women are giving birth while in custody,
(02:02):
and that could mean she is shackled, handcuffed while her
baby is being born. Kimberly Haven is the executive director
of Reproductive Justice Inside, an organization fighting for the dignity
of pregnant women behind bars.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Kimberly welcome, Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Vanessa.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
What is it like inside for a woman who is pregnant?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The lack of adequate prenatal care is appalling. Add to that,
if you are somebody who has made the decision about
if one and how you want to have a family,
and you want to seek an abortion, that is routinely
denied to you. If you give birth, are you in
a state where you are shackled? Are you in a
(02:47):
birth in a state where you can give birth with
your mom, your aunt, the baby's father, a birth coach,
or do you have a correctional office at the top
of your head and one looking up your legs while
you're delivering your child? And then do you get to
bond with a child, or is a child taken away
from you? Do you get an opportunity to have those
precious moments or breastfeed or a breast pump And so
(03:10):
it really is a very huge, multi layered issue that
doesn't get attention, primarily because we don't think about people
being pregnant while they're incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And increasingly that number is going up. You mentioned abortion,
and especially in states southern states where abortion has virtually
been wiped out, it's not even an option for many women,
so they are forced to continue that pregnancy behind bars.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yes, and actually it's not just in our southern states.
If you are even in some of our more progressive states,
and I'll use Maryland for a perfect example, they don't
tell you upon confirmation of your pregnancy test, these are
your options, and so you because there's a long held
ideology of people that are incarcerated that you are in
(04:03):
fact property of your state. For instance, if you get
a tattoo, you could be charged with the destruction of
property of state property. So you falsely work under the
assumption that you can't access an abortion. Now Maryland, abortion
is a protected right. However, if they don't tell you
about it, and you don't know to ask, then you
(04:23):
are going to carry that child to term if you
are in a southern state, perfect example, if you haven't
been convicted of a crime, you've merely been accused of
a crime. Therefore you should be able to travel to
seek the reproductive health care that you want. But if
you're being held because we have some of the most
horrible and draconian bail laws, then you can't access that.
(04:49):
If you're sentenced in your state says nope, we don't
believe an abortion. You're out of luck. You are in
fact out of luck. It's this multi leveled, multi layered
nightmare that individuals don't know how to navigate. Advocates struggle
with having to navigate.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
As for Erica Thompson, at the time, she decided to
sue the Alachua County Sheriff's Department and hired civil rights
attorney Ben Crump to represent her. Here's his news conference
back in twenty twenty one. He says, the jail broke
the law, not getting her help and not saving her baby.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
As we understand that this is the first test of
the saint long known as the Tammy Jackson that to
see if they're gonna hold the attendant sellers accountful.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ben Crump mentioned the Tammy Jackson Act, named after a
woman who was held in the Broward County, Florida jail
for a trespassing and drug possession charge whose story is
so horrendous. She says, for seven hours she was in
labor calling for help, and when her baby came, she
had to crouch down to catch her infant. Listen as
(05:59):
she explains what's hard to even imagine. It was horrifying.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
It was horrifying when she felt I had to bend
out like how I'm bendin dow to pick her up
until I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
She tells her newborn. She's sorry because the infant hit
the jail cell floor.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
I didn't even get through before I had her, you know.
And also that she ain't hit the floor. I rather
from a locked be by my side.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
The hospital will have that, as she explains to local
station WPLGTV back in twenty nineteen, what happened to her
caught such statewide and national attention and prompted a law
signed by Governorn DeSantis in twenty twenty that women inmates
in labor must be taken to the hospital. Reportedly, the
(06:46):
guards came in as she was holding her newborn. In
this case, her little girl, Miranda lived Sadly, Tammy Jackson,
who suffered from mental issues, died more than a year
later from an unrelated, undisclosed cause, but her name lives
on in a law to try and prevent what she
went through from happening again. At least that's what it's
(07:06):
meant to do in the state of Florida. We need
something national, We need something federal in terms of how
women are treated behind bars.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
There is some movement, and I applaud some of our
elected officials in DC and I don't say that very often.
I'm not going to lie. But you know, states still
have autonomy, and so you can have a federal law,
but a state could have a different law, and you're
a subject to state law. And while federal law generally
(07:34):
trumps state, it depends on how it's crafted. Usually at
the federal level they will only work on issues related
to individuals that are within the care, custody and control
of the Bureau of Prisons, not state facilities.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I see, how big is the problem? How many pregnant
women would you estimate are now locked up?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We really don't know because institutions don't report out, and
this is something that we're working aggressively to try to
get states to do. The problem is that states will
report out and there's not a uniform way of gathering
that data. So what we want to be able to
look at is did someone come in already with a pregnancy?
(08:18):
Did someone find out that they were pregnant upon admission?
And then when were they released? Were they released at
what point during their incarceration or their pre trial attainment?
Did this result in a live birth? Was an abortion
and option? Was there a miscarriage? Was there a stillbirth?
Whatever all of those things are. But states don't do that.
(08:39):
And when we try to go into states to write
legislation that would require correction departments to do that, they
will work to kill the bill because they don't want
anybody seeing what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Kimberly Haven from Reproductive Justice Inside has been instrumental in
getting states to change what nobody really talks about, working
with lawmakers, educate them about what's really happening, and getting
them to listen to the labor pains and cries of
agony bouncing off the walls of the cells on the inside.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I wrote this bill about not placing pregnant women
in solitary confinement, which is also just a harsher name
for restrictive housing. But that's what they do. And a
woman in one of our western counties actually kept complaining
she was there for a probation violation of all things,
and she kept saying, I'm going into labor, I'm going
(09:31):
into labor, and they kept telling her, no, you're just
in withdrawal. You're trying to get attention. She delivered her
daughter in a dirty jail cell, slid the placenta out
underneath the door in order to get people's attention. Her
daughter was born with an antibiotic resistant staff infection. She
now has a federal lawsuit against the State of Maryland
(09:54):
and against the local jurisdiction because we'd written a law
that said you cannot do this.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Why did you get involved in all of this, Kimberly,
tell us your background.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So I originally got involved because of my own incarceration,
and I got involved beginning with menstrual hygiene. We became
the fifth state because they wrote that bill. We became
the fifth state in the nation to pass menstrual hygiene laws.
But then it was so, now, what do we need
to think about? And pregnancy was always something that is
(10:27):
one of those not talked about issues. And I saw
too many pregnant individuals cycle through And you know, I
know somebody whose child was born who came in and said,
I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant, And they kept saying, no,
you're just fat and sad. Honest to God, that's what
they told the woman, you are just fat and sad. Finally,
about six and a half months, she got a positive
(10:49):
confirmation for pregnancy test, even though she kept asking for
to be retested and her child was born on the spectrum,
and she actually had a an analysis done and it
was based on the care that she got while she
was incarcerated, the care she didn't get while she was incarcerated.
So it wasn't genetic, it was environmental. And so the
(11:12):
more I hear about these stories, the more we not
only look at menstrual hygiene, what we also look at
We've now changed our focus. That's really the reproductive life
span of incarcerated women and girls, because we're also not
talking about menopause. Menopause is part of that reproductive life span, right,
And so every day there's another state that does something
(11:35):
that is just beyond the pale, that is just so egregious,
and I just am thinking how why? And so our
work is not going away. Our work is only amplifying.
And as more and more of these draconian laws are
put back in place and good progressive things are rolled back,
(11:57):
we're going to see more and more impacts on individuals, families,
and communities.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Now, how does menopause play into it, Because of course
we know prisons are designed for men, so are there
things that should be in place for women in menopause
as well as pregnancy.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, I mean again, it's we know that some women
will need estrogen therapy, we know some women will need medications,
but sometimes it's something as simple as making sure she
has a fan, making sure she has actual access to ice.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know, these are things that are no brainers.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think probably the most painful of all is the
way the babies once they are born, whether like you said,
depending on the state, whether there's a correction officer in
the birthing room or not. Once the babies are born,
how they are taken within twenty four to forty eight hours,
and there's no breastfeeding, there's really no bonding at all.
(13:00):
Those issues they're just cruel.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And there's also the problem too that if let's say
you have a five year sentence, you come in find
out you're pregnant, abortion is not an option. You do
not want to choose that path. That is certainly your
right and your agency. But then what are you going
to do with your child? You're denied the opportunity to
(13:23):
plan for it. Can this child go with the baby's father,
Can it go with your mother, your auntie, your sister,
your best friend, and be able to put those things
in place. These are also people that are probably already
on your approved guest lip, you know your guest past.
So if they're already allowed to come into the institution
to see you, why can they not be allowed to
(13:44):
be with you in what is both the most beautiful
thing in somebody's life but also one of the most uncomfortable.
When you're by yourself and you only have mindless faceless
these are not your routine obi uyns. Then you have
correctional officers. You don't know what to expect. You know,
(14:05):
the hospitals are trying to deliver your baby, but they're
not worried about what the policy is, they're not worried
about what the state is. They're also just doing what
they have to do, which is their jobs. But is
that child given the opportunity or you have the ability
to have that child placed on your chest to create
that bonding in those crucial moments after delivery, before your
(14:28):
child is taken away from you or your child goes
home with your family member, right and those play out.
That is emotionally traumatizing to both the infant, to the family,
and to the mother because then she has to go
back and serve the rest of her time without having
had the opportunity to bond with an infant that she's
(14:49):
carried for nine months. That level of trauma is then
not addressed. It is not even recognized within our carceral settings.
And so how does someone way their word through that
trauma while incarcerated without having the tools and the support
to be able to do it? And then how do
(15:10):
you come home with that?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You talked about some of the issues that you have
won and some of the bills that you've written. What's
next on the agenda for our JI?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Well, I think that what we're looking at is we
still want to be able to partner with some of
our states who you know, maybe reaching out because we
wrote the very first in the nation model Pregnancy policy
Manual for incarcerated and that goes from the moment of
a positive confirmation. We put it through COVID, we put
it through release, and it covered every aspect of pregnancy care.
(15:45):
Some states are reaching out and saying what would it
cost to do that? Well, that depends on the healthcare contract,
and healthcare contracts are always going to go to the
lowest bidder. So we broke it out like this is
best practices, this is what at the very least you
should be doing, and then this is what the laws
says that you have to do. And so we want
to be able to work with those states that are
interested in doing that. We also want to be able
(16:07):
to take the legislation and the talking points that we've
been successful with and share that with advocates on the
ground in the different states. But I do think that
we need to work on a national campaign that puts
the highlight on the reproductive lifespan of incarcerated women and girls,
and really be able to force states to report out,
(16:31):
to be able to make their manuals how do you
provide this healthcare? And you can have as a Department
of Corrections a manual, but how are you enforcing that
your healthcare provider is doing it? What's their manual? And
trying to be able to create a national tracking system
for that. That's where I think that OURJI is really
(16:52):
starting to focus now and really trying to build that
out so that in a given moment, someone can say, so,
what does it look like in Maryland versus Louisiana, for instance,
and we would be able to tell them and put
in some reporting bills. Again, I can't I say this
all the time, and I swear Vanessa, I'm going to
have a T shirt made with this. I can't fight
(17:13):
what I can't see, and I can't see what you
won't show me.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
You said that there's a minimum. What is the minimum
that you're finding that at least all fifty states are
doing for pregnant women behind bars.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They will give them prenatal vitamins. That would be the
worst of the worst. Here is some prenatal vitamins. That's it,
and we'll, you know, we'll schedule you to see an
obg U I N with the next time they come in,
and if they order a sonogram, we'll get you a sonogram.
But it's not a There are benchmarks for healthy pregnancies
(17:48):
and healthy maternal outcomes, and if they play fast and
loose with that, then that plays out and potentially it
can be harmful to the individual and to the child.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
How can our listeners help in this battle and help
our sisters behind bars?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
We would love it. They can certainly reach out to
me directly at four four, three, six, nine, two seven eight.
They can, you know, find me at Kimberly at Reproductive
Justice inside dot org. They can visit our website that
we're currently updating because we want to put some of
our trainings up there, and they can also ask what's
(18:27):
happening in their own state. Because if you ask what's
happening in your own state, whether it's at the state
prison or you want to look at a county facility,
get that information and if you you know, want to
reach out to me, I'm happy to craft something that
you can ask the questions, gather that information, and then
feed it back to us so we can figure out
how to work with you and work within your state
(18:49):
for the betterment of our sisters. We're all for it.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Kimberly Haven, thank you for your fight and not forgetting
about the women about to give birth inside.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thank you so much Vanessa for keeping issue up and
again helping us advocate for our sisters and that are
on the inside and for our families and communities on
the outside.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Before I go, I wanted to give Tammy Jackson the
last word. She is no longer alive, dying of an
unrelated cause a year after giving birth alone, no painkillers,
no one rubbing her back or holding her hand, feeding
her ice chips, alone, catching her daughter as she fell
from between her legs onto the cold, hard, filthy floor.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
It isn't a joke when it comes to bring some
and if they don't want to vibe by that, it's fired.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Because I don't believe no woman she really had to
go over that. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Join me next Friday
for a brand new episode of black Land. Like and
subscribe and get it wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Vanessa Tyler
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