VIDEO: The Horrors Of Giving Birth Behind Bars in America
A new investigation from the U.S. Senate demands the nation's attention.
For months, staff at the U.S. Senate’s Human Rights Subcommittee have been investigating the treatment of pregnant women behind bars.
The chair of that committee, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), held a hearing this week laying out some of the findings of their investigation. This is how he introduced what they found.
The subcommittee has identified more than 200 reported human rights abuses against pregnant and postpartum women at state prisons and jails nationwide. We’ve heard from women forced to give birth in prison showers, hallways, or on dirty cell floors. Mothers who gave birth into toilets after being told they were not in labor and that they should quote lie down and go back to their cells. Mothers who gave birth in their underwear after prison staff refused to help them and told them instead quote don’t have that baby and quote you’re not even pregnant. In all cases we reviewed these women repeatedly requested and even begged for help. But help came too late, if at all, and in several cases, their babies did not survive.
I wanted to highlight the testimony of Jessica “Drew” Umberger, a woman who was incarcerated in Georgia.
From 2017-2018, Umberger was pregnant during her five-year sentence in prison at the Helms facility in Dekalb County, Georgia. She described the morning she gave birth. Here’s an excerpt from her testimony.
I was most scared the morning I was to give birth. I was told by prison staff that because I had a c-section 18 years prior, it was Georgia Department of Corrections’ policy that I had to have another one. Even though I told them I wanted to have a vaginal birth, they told me it was not allowed. It is my strong belief that the prison staff wanted me to have a c-section to fit my birth into their hospital transport schedule. God had other plans.
I ended up with pre-eclampsia and had to be rushed to a hospital. This is where my trauma turned for the worse. I was dropped off with officers I did not know at a hospital and was in a surgery room surrounded by strangers: doctors who never examined me and nurses I’d never met. When I explained to the doctor that I was told I had to have a c-section but that I wanted a natural birth, the doctor said it sounded like ‘coercion’ to him.
My beautiful Jordyn was born August 15, 2018. I had only two short hours to hold and look at my baby. This would be the last time I would see her for a few years — about 3 years. We were separated, she was taken to the Neonatal Unit, and I was taken to a dark basement, where they kept incarcerated people. In the basement, I was transferred from the rolling bed to a stationary bed. I had to be helped by a couple of nurses as I could not feel my legs. I remember the nurse asking the male Sergeant to step out so she could clean me up, and he replied, ‘I can’t do that ma’am.’ She looked me in the eyes and quietly said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and proceeded to clean my private areas while the male sergeant watched.
The next few days I remember random men looking every hour into that small window of the locked door. I remember seeing feet of people walking by my ‘caged’ window and thinking, ‘if people only knew what was happening down here, what would they say, or would they even care?’
Watch her testimony:
The entire hearing is posted here.
How common are the sorts of abuses the hearing highlighted? It’s hard to say. The U.S. criminal justice system is spread out into countless jurisdictions, and there’s little centralized oversight.
But there’s some positive news on that front. President Biden recently signed into law a bill spearheaded by Ossoff that will strengthen oversight over the federal prison system.
Meanwhile, Ossoff laid down a question to the country at the conclusion of the testimony.
Right now, as we sit here in this wood-paneled chamber there are women on prison wards laboring bleeding calling for help right as we speak facing the same kind of inhumanity and neglect that Ms. Umberger did happening in jails across this country with taxpayer dollars. It makes you think about how the United States goes around the world lecturing other nations on human rights. But how can we hear what we heard today and accept that even basic human rights are being protected in our society?