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Alabama puts pregnant women in jail to ‘protect’ fetuses from drugs [1]

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Date: 2022-09-08

While authorities said that was the only choice Banks had, it remained unavailable to her as rehab centers refused to take her. Because Banks couldn’t enter a rehab center, she was left in a position of limbo for at least three months.

According to AL.com, state specialists who evaluated Banks for drug addiction on several occasions found she didn’t qualify for free addiction services offered through the state. According to Banks’ lawyers, state investigators even pressured her to “admit” to a drug addiction she didn’t have so that she could access rehab, pay the $10,000 cash bond for allegedly exposing her fetus to drugs, and leave jail—but Banks refused.

“I have reckless murder cases where defendants have been released on bond,” said Banks’ attorney Morgan Cunningham, AL.com reported. “Requiring her to go to rehab is not Constitutional.”

As Banks was unable to go to rehab because she didn’t qualify, she was forced to stay in jail, during which time she even furthered the risks associated with her pregnancy—the pregnancy that officials claimed to jail her to protect. After six weeks of being imprisoned, Banks started to bleed and continued to do so for another five weeks, AL.com reported.

Because of overcrowding, she was forced to sleep on the floor, even after being diagnosed with a condition, subchorionic hematoma, that heightened her risk of miscarriage.

As Banks continued to bleed for weeks, she told AL.com she was often hungry and went through fainting episodes.

Attorneys with the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, an organization that opposes laws that criminalize pregnancy, noted that it’s unfair to impose special conditions on pregnant women who haven’t been convicted of any crimes.

As a result of their “drug” policy, the Etowah County Detention Center often holds several pregnant and postpartum women in jail against the advice of experts on maternal and fetal health. According to AL.com, Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB/GYN and expert on incarceration and pregnancy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote an affidavit urging the court to release Banks.

“The stress and conditions in jail and prisons, including lack of consistent access to standard prenatal care and mental health care, poor diets, poor sanitation, infestations with bugs and vermin, poor ventilation, tension, noise, lack of privacy, lack of family and community contact, can be detrimental to physical and mental health which can result in poor pregnancy outcomes for both the mother and the baby,” Sufrin wrote.

While Banks was finally released to community corrections on Aug. 25, it is unclear how many other women have been incarcerated due to similar situations. A recent AL.com investigation found at least seven pregnant or postpartum women in a jail log who had been incarcerated at some point between April and August.

In another case, Hali Burns, a mother of two, was arrested six days after the birth of her newborn son because she tested positive for methamphetamine and Subutex, a medication used to treat pregnant women with opioid use disorder. According to Burns’ lawyers, Burns had a prescription for Subutex, and the sinus medication triggered false positive results for methamphetamine. While Etowah County prosecutors dispute those claims, neither a judge nor a jury has had an opportunity to examine the evidence leaving Burns in jail for more than two months.

Her boyfriend, Craig Battles, became emotional while talking about the impact this has had on the family.

“My little girl keeps asking what she did wrong and why she can’t come home,” Battles told Al.com

Battles noted that he tried to deliver pads and underwear so Burns would not bleed onto her clothes since she was jailed after giving birth, but jail staff told him the items weren’t allowed.

“When she first got in jail, she was right out of the hospital,” Battles said. “She didn’t even have panties or pads, and she had just had a baby. She was stuffing paper towels or toilet paper in her pants to stop the bleeding.”

While state legislators claim these laws are in place to protect children, they fail to realize the impact jailing the mother has on the children.

Researchers for National Advocates for Pregnant Women have also tracked more than 150 chemical endangerment cases involving women in Etowah County since 2010.

But that's not the only issue. Medical needs not being met in jail can lead to pregnant people being prosecuted even further as Alabama law states that women who used drugs during their pregnancy and who suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth can be sent to jail for as long as 99 years.

Alabama leads the nation in arresting women who use drugs during pregnancy. According to a report by The Marshall Project, Alabama leads the nation in arresting women who allegedly used drugs during pregnancy. In one case, a woman who used meth while pregnant and then suffered a stillbirth was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The state was also the first to add a “fetal personhood clause” to its constitution in 2018, recognizing “the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”

But such incarcerations are not solely in Alabama. Earlier this year in California, Adora Perez was released after serving four years in prison for manslaughter after she experienced a stillbirth after alleged methamphetamine use.

Going to jail is not the end of it. Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, pharmacies across the country, out of fear of criminal liability, have been refusing to fill prescriptions for not just medication abortions and Plan B, but literally any drug—including life-saving medications—that could cause miscarriage.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/8/2121551/-Alabama-jails-pregnant-woman-for-months-to-protect-fetus-from-alleged-drug-use

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