By Diana Kasdan, Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
Today, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health published a nationwide survey — "Incarcerated Women and Abortion Provision: A Survey of Correctional Health Providers," by Carolyn B. Sufrin, Mitchell D. Creinin, and Judy C. Chang. For the first time, we have a comprehensive understanding of whether incarcerated women can obtain abortion care in U.S. correctional facilities. The authors surveyed health professionals who provide clinical care in prisons; only 68 percent of respondents indicated that women in their facilities can obtain "elective" abortions. To state the disturbingly obvious flip-side of that statistic: more than 30 percent of respondents indicated that women within their facilities could not access abortion care.
A few weeks ago, an investigative piece in the Texas Observer reported, "For pregnant women in immigration detention facilities, it is virtually impossible to obtain an abortion." Interviews with sexual assault counselors, researchers, and advocates reveal that pregnant detainees — including those who are pregnant as a result of having been raped while crossing the border — face immense, often complete, barriers when they seek abortion information and services. According to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson quoted in that story, of nearly 1,000 pregnant detainees in 2008 "no detainee has had a pregnancy terminated while in ICE custody," though as the article also makes clear, we know that at least some of these women would have requested information about terminating their pregnancies.
What exactly is going on? First, let's put to rest any lingering doubts: The Supreme Court did notrecently decide that pregnant women lose their right to have an abortion when they are in prison, and the Bush administration did not push through a midnight regulation banning reproductive health care for incarcerated women. To the contrary, as I explain in a Viewpoint (PDF) piece published along with the Sufrin study, the law is clear -- women do not lose their right to abortion because of imprisonment, and correctional authorities must ensure that women in their custody have adequate access to abortion care. Likewise, pregnant women who plan to carry to term have a constitutional right to medical care throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery. Unfortunately, too often authorities disregard the unique health needs of pregnant women and assume that they have discretion to permit or deny care as they see fit. As Sufrin's survey confirms, when it comes to abortion, this can lead to a hodgepodge of policies, practices, and perceptions among correctional authorities and staff.
This gap between the health needs and rights of pregnant inmates, and the services they can actually access, is, of course, not completely surprising. It is one more result of a system in which prisoners are subject to discretionary policies and practices that are largely shielded from public scrutiny. On the other hand, the widespread misunderstanding, and in some cases complete disregard, of the rights of incarcerated women is startling. Given sheer numbers, any facility that houses female inmates should expect to see pregnant women and must prepare to meet their unique health needs. Yet, in creating an online, state-by-state guide of correctional pregnancy-care standards in facilities throughout the country, I could not readily locate any relevant policies in 16 states. And, of the pregnancy-care standards located in 34 states and the District of Columbia, only 20 referenced both prenatal and abortion care, leaving a total of 30 states completely silent on abortion access.
While the results of these recent surveys and reports may seem discouraging, I remain hopeful. As the treatment of incarcerated women has increasingly become a topic of advocacy, public health projects, policy making, and public discussion we have seen positive change. For instance, advocates and policy-makers are reforming the inhumane practice, common in many prisons and jails, of shackling pregnant women taken to hospitals for labor and delivery. In more and more states, community organizations are bringing family-planning services, and birthing and parenting classes directly to women in prison. And recent court cases in Arizona and Missouri have made clear that correctional facilities may not deny women access to abortion care.
So, although our work is far from done, the Sufrin study offers another critical step forward for comprehensively addressing the range of health services incarcerated women need as they prepare to reclaim their lives, return to their families and re-enter the community.
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Are unplanned pregnancies common among US citizens who have been convicted of crimes and are currently serving sentences when they become pregnant?
Exactly how do female prisoners become pregnant in all female populations?
As far as illegal aliens are concerned, don't they end up deported fairly quickly? How long are they in custody? Why exactly are illegal aliens being given free health care?
Geez, use your imagination.
1. Some number of women are pregnant when they are arrested or when their sentences begin. About 1% of American adults are incarcerated, so even if it's not that common in percentage terms, you're still dealing with a large number in absolute terms.
2. Sex with guards. Which is almost always an abuse of power. Also sometimes conjugal visits.
3. Undocumented immigrants are often kept in custody while, say, their application for asylum is processed, while they appeal deportation, and while their cases are judged. There's some level of due process they get, as there damn well should be. As for why they get health care in detention, it's because they're human beings. God forbid you ever need to escape a repressive regime, try to provide for your family in an impoverished country, or accidentally overstay your student visa somewhere.
1. Women who become pregant before begining their prison terms, how many are actually unplanned preganancies that the inmates would choose to abort?
2. Rape of inmates.
This does occur, by inmates on other inmates and guards on inmates. I was under the misguided notion that all guards in female prisons were females (I operate under that assumption from stories I've heard from a friend who is a women's prison guard). Let me be clear, I consider rape to be equivalent to torture and I do not condone torture. Any guard that tortures a prisoner is a criminal and deserves to be convicted of their crimes and given appropriate punishment.
3. I'm of the opinion any illegal alien that comes to the US with the express attempt to give birth to their child on US soil to take advantage of Jus Soli be immediately deported and should their child be born in the US, the child as a US citizen would be taken from the illegal alien and put up for adoption. There are many loving families that desperately want a newborn child that have been vetted for parenthood who are US citizens just like the child.
Further people escaping from repressive regimes are given special status by the US State Department and are not illegal aliens. Students who 'accidentally overstay' their study visa are not illegal aliens (student visas don't allow the visiter to work). And finally originating from a poor country does not give anyone the right to ignore laws, even immigration laws.
1. Some percentage of all pregnancies are unplanned/unwanted, so I'd say its pretty likely that a similar portion of pregnancies among arrested women were unplanned and unwanted. If you assume that women who are arrested and sent to jail are more likely to be lower class, poorer, less educated, have less access to health care, etc, then its probably even MORE likely that a pregnancy would have been unplanned. A woman could be pregnant and not know it yet when she's arrested or sentenced, or she might not have had time to obtain an abortion outside of jail. Or, the fact that she will now be in jail could have some bearing on her decision not to continue the pregnancy.
What is the proportion of pregnant female convicts who start serving their time pregnant who would choose to have an elective abortion while in prison? What is that proportion compared to the overall population?
I don't know, but does it really matter? As long as its (even potentially) not zero, there should be policies that allow pregnant women in prison access to healthcare and reproductive choices.
Yes, it does matter.
So you'd be fine with torturing inmates as long as its below, say .01% of the population?
So you'd be fine with torturing inmates as long as its below, say .01% of the population?
For that matter, you should be fine with most criminals then, since any given criminal probably only attacks a couple people and that is a very small percentage of our country.
"So you'd be fine with torturing inmates as long as its below, say .01% of the population?
For that matter, you should be fine with most criminals then, since any given criminal probably only attacks a couple people and that is a very small percentage of our country. "
MissKittyFantastico,
This is an arguement a troll would use. It's a called a straw man arguement, you misrepresent my points and position purposefully to ridicule and refute my arguements.
First, I never said why it's important to know what percentage of convicts are preganant and would choose to have an abortion, only that it matters.
Second, I've already stated that I am against torture.
Ok, then WHY is it important? I don't see you giving any reason for your obsession with those statistics other than that small numbers make it less important.
You can say you're against torture all you want, but you are also arguing for forcing women to continue with unwanted pregnancies. That is worse torture than waterboarding: it goes on for months, is extremely painful, can have very serious long term health consequences, and can kill you.
If forcing someone to endure pain isn't torture, what is?
Really? There are probably VERY VERY FEW inmates who have, say, muscular dystrophy. Should they be denied medical care because most don't have the condition? Or for something less immediate, should schizophrenic patients be denied psychiatric care because the condition is rare?
The question here is, why are those few inmates who are pregnant and wish to abort being denied access to legally acceptable medical care for their condition.
"Really? There are probably VERY VERY FEW inmates who have, say, muscular dystrophy. Should they be denied medical care because most don't have the condition? Or for something less immediate, should schizophrenic patients be denied psychiatric care because the condition is rare?"
Abortion is an elective surgery, not a life long condition that requires constant treatment. Further people suffering from psychiatric conditions typically are not in prison, they're in mental institutions.
"The question here is, why are those few inmates who are pregnant and wish to abort being denied access to legally acceptable medical care for their condition."
But are they actually being denied or not being offered the services at the prison? Elective surgeries can obtained by petitioning the court to allow them to be performed at an appropriate hospital. The court makes the decsion not the warden.
Did you read the original post? It states, with sources, that women in prison ARE being denied abortions.
"Abortion is an elective surgery, not a life long condition that requires constant treatment."
Pregnancy is a temporary condition that requires constant treatment. It also causes life-long trauma that requires treatment. Why not prevent it?
"Further people suffering from psychiatric conditions typically are not in prison, they're in mental institutions."
Untrue. They are placed in mental institutions only if the reason they committed the crime is related to their mental condition. Many people have mental conditions that had nothing to do with their crimes.
"But are they actually being denied or not being offered the services at the prison? Elective surgeries can obtained by petitioning the court to allow them to be performed at an appropriate hospital. The court makes the decsion not the warden."
The entire point of this is that it's not just that they aren't being offered-- they are being DENIED when REQUESTED.
Joe,
You wrote--
Further people suffering from psychiatric conditions typically are not in prison, they're in mental institutions.
Are you kidding me? Prisons are the new mental health institutions. Individuals with mental health diseases go through what has been termed the "revolving door" of society. They go from the streets, to the hospital (NOT mental institutions), to prison and back again. There have been many articles about this and even recent 20/20 coverage. The fact you don't know this makes me wonder about all of your arguments. Please take some time and Google mental health and prison and educate yourself. This is a VERY important issue that everyone should know about because it speaks volumes about how we treat sick individuals in our society.
As far as reproductive rights in prison, women should continue to have the right to all forms of health care!
"Women who become pregnant before beginning their prison terms, how many are actually unplanned pregnancies that the inmates would choose to abort?"
Well, even if it's planned before you're in jail, who wants to give birth in jail and make their child endure fostering, plus not get to see them for maybe years after their born? I know I would abort, and try again later when I was capable of caring for them, unless the baby had been particularly difficult to conceive.
"I'm of the opinion any illegal alien that comes to the US with the express attempt to give birth to their child on US soil to take advantage of Jus Soli be immediately deported and should their child be born in the US, the child as a US citizen would be taken from the illegal alien and put up for adoption."
I agree they should be deported. But taking their kids away? Dump their kid in foster care? That's absurd. We have tons of kids in foster care, mostly of the same ethnicities and ages of the kids we'd be taking away. Rather than support tons of children who will never be adopted because they aren't Anglo Saxon newborns, I vote for deciding that Jus Soli doesn't apply to people who are here illegally, and sending the whole family back.
We only give them free care while they are in our deportation centers or prisons, unable to work, with no money. It's unethical to make them die of preventable and manageable illnesses while WE are preventing them from working to pay for their own care, and WE are preventing them from going back to their own country if they'd rather. Denying health care in prisons is a form of torture, since inmates have no means to go get it themselves, or work to pay for it.
should their child be born in the US, the child as a US citizen would be taken from the illegal alien and put up for adoption. There are many loving families that desperately want a newborn child that have been vetted for parenthood who are US citizens just like the child.
Uhhh ... Seriously?
Yes.
I can understand the impulse here; to stop rewarding people who break the law. But this doesn't really work as a solution. See my post down at the bottom of the thread.
Yeah, but why punish ourselves, and the kid who didn't break the law? Way easier to send the kid home, and declare citizenship rights to be invalid when they are still a minor in the custody of non-citizens or something.
Yeah, that is a better solution. I was just responding to the idea in the post above.
Exactly how do female prisoners become pregnant in all female populations?
Rape or coerced sexual relations with male guards. Not as far-fetched as one might think.
As far as illegal aliens are concerned, don't they end up deported fairly quickly? How long are they in custody? Why exactly are illegal aliens being given free health care?
Our immigrations system is many things - speedy is not one of them. Deportation can take weeks or months. A woman I know (who was seeking asylum in the US through legal processes) was detained by ICE for over a year, only to be released back to her community in the US ... plenty of time to carry a pregnancy to term.
Although I'm a bit confused why someone would want to deny an abortion to a woman on the grounds of giving "illegal aliens" free health care when the result of a pregnancy of an immigrant woman being held in jail would be a US citizen, who would be entitled to a hell of a lot more than the cost of an abortion.
I think that the above and generally how we treat women all over the spectrum of reproductive health care justice (from women seeking an abortion all the way to women who want to have a homebirth) is so indicative of how little regard our culture holds for women. And women from a non-privileged class? Forget about it.
We are simply not entitled to equal human rights by our society.
No Miriam, criminals do not get equal human rights. Their rights are forfeited when they are convicted of commiting crimes. They loose the right to vote, the right to freedom, the right to pursue happiness. They loose many things because they chose to commit a crime.
Criminals are not entitled to equal human rights.
Our justice system make take away some political rights, but EVERYONE deserves health care and a safe environment. No crime warrants denying these. Period.
Radishette,
No, criminals do not have the right to health care nor a safe environment. Under the eighth amendment the following are prohibited: excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.
I can think of no environment more dangerous than a prison. And free health care is not even a right that a free unemployed man has.
If you're locking someone up, you become responsible for their food and health care because they can't go get it themselves. Its not like we could lock someone up in a prison and not give them any food and then say oh well, we're not actually DOING anything to them, I mean, people outside of prison aren't guaranteed free food.
Actually starving inmates would be considered "cruel and unusual." Wana try again?
That's exactly her point. You can't do that. In the same way that you cannot deny health care.
There is no precdence showing the denial of elective surgery as being cruel and unusual.
The denial of food however has been shown to be cruel.
So the issue is that its an "elective" surgery? Well, I'd agree with you that there's no reason a prisoner should be entitled to a free nose job, but there's a big difference between that and an abortion.
The woman isn't saying hey, I want an abortion for the hell of it. The point is that if you deny her an abortion, she is then forced to continue with the pregnancy. Being forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy is not part of what the judge sentenced her to. It is punishment far beyond what prisons are supposed to do.
Besides, we are not only talking about access to abortion here. Suppose she does decide to continue the pregnancy. Then we are also talking about her healthcare during pregnancy and labor. Have you ever read about women being forced to give birth in shackles, unable to change position to allow the baby to come out at the right angle, causing enormous pain while doctors plead with the guards to let her move around? THAT is cruel and unusual punishment. Knowing how pregnant women are treated in prisons, I bet far more women in prison would want an abortion. If we let them have necessary prenatal care and give birth under reasonable and healthy conditions, more of them might choose to continue the pregnancy.
(For the record, I think that if there is in fact an extremely dangerous female criminal who has a history of attacking guards/police/doctors and who is really strong and could theoretically attack a doctor while giving birth, they can shackle her. Like if Hannibal Lector was female and pregnant. But that should be the exception, not the norm. Your average female drug offender or petty thief is not going to be a flight risk in the middle of labor, but you can have a guard and some locked doors anyway just in case. You don't need 4-point metal shackles as the contractions happen.)
They have the right not to be tortured. Denying medical care WHEN THEY HAVE NO MEANS TO GET IT THEMSELVES is torture. It's not like a free citizen, who can go and work and provide for his own needs in healthcare. They have no means to get healthcare, no means to get money for it. Denial of healthcare has repeatedly been determined to be cruel and unusual, torturous punishment.
Imagine you forced an inmate to carry a heavy weight on his stomach for nearly a year, and in the meantime pushed his bladder to force him to pee, and induced nausea in him, and triggered his nerves to cause shooting pains. Then imagine at the end of this, after months of this, you forced something the size of a melon through his pelvis, inducing extreme bleeding, pain, and trauma to the region; or you cut open his abdomen and sewed it back together. Would that be torture? Because that's unwanted pregnancy.
Well, at least Opheelia got the point.
You're saying that we shouldn't be obligated to give inmates healthcare because we don't even give free healthcare to people outside prison. I'm saying ok, well, we also don't give free food or water or beds to people outside prison, but obviously denying it to people IN prison would be cruel and unusual because, follow me here, we are keeping them from the normal ways of obtaining such things. Its the same with healthcare.
If a prisoner breaks their leg, shall we just leave them to sit in their cell, suffer, heal wrong or die of infection? Because, I mean, we don't give free healthcare to people outside of prison, so why should he get a doctor to fix his leg?
"If a prisoner breaks their leg, shall we just leave them to sit in their cell, suffer, heal wrong or die of infection? Because, I mean, we don't give free healthcare to people outside of prison, so why should he get a doctor to fix his leg?"
Once again, a disengenious arguement. Emergency services are never denied to anyone, regardless of their socioeconomic condition, or status as a convict.
Elective surgeries are a different matter.
So if he's a diabetic, should we refuse to give him insulin? That's not an emergency.
Unwanted pregnancy is torture. Hell, WANTED pregnancy is torture, but women endure it because they CHOSE to.
Ok, how about this. Say you're a prisoner and you have a tumor growing in your stomach. You certainly won't die right away and you might not die at all (cancer can go into spontaneous remission, and a benign tumor might not really hurt you for ages until it gets really big. Maybe you'll be out of jail by then.). So, getting this tumor removed is an elective procedure (you could also choose to wait and see what happens, or use drugs, or chemo, etc).
So shall we deny a prisoner the right to make a medical decision about what to do about their giant abdominal tumor?
I'm sure you'll say this argument also doesn't work because it is not a pregnancy. Well, the point is, imagine you were pregnant. Imagine you didn't want to endure a pregnancy and labor, but you were locked in a room and forced to, while the person in the cell next to you only had to be locked in a room and be bored, for the same crime.
(Also, I'm pretty sure it costs more money to the state in the end to have a doctor deliver the baby and then have the baby live in foster care for however long, than to allow the woman an abortion.)
Joe, you are clearly just being difficult. You ignore all the strong, valid points against your argument and continue to put forward the same points over and over again.
Why are you even on a feminist blog if you're opposed to women's rights? Aside from trolling.
Criminals are protected under federal, state, and international law. They have the right to health care, food, clothing and to be protected from violence. They are protected against cruel and unusual punishment; I would argue that denying a woman access to abortion certainly falls under this.
Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 46% of felony arrestees are held in detention until disposition of their case. These people haven't been convicted of any crime yet.
Once again, how are these convicted criminals becoming pregnant? They shouldn't be having sex with men at all durring their time in prison.
Furthermore your quote from the Bureau of Justice Statistics fails to provide the percentage of the felony arrestees in detention that are female, pregnant when arrested, and unable to obtain bail so they can have an abortion on their own dollar.
So you're ignoring all the other answers to how convicted criminals would be pregnant?
And again, it doesn't really matter what percentage; we don't allow cruel and unusual punishment as long as its to a small enough percentage of the population.
I think you're entering troll territory-- if you want to avoid it, stop asking the same questions over and over again and start discussing people's responses.
"So you're ignoring all the other answers to how convicted criminals would be pregnant?"
You haven't provided any. If you're refering to North's response, please go back and reread my response to North.
"And again, it doesn't really matter what percentage; we don't allow cruel and unusual punishment as long as its to a small enough percentage of the population."
The amount of prisoners being denied abortions does matter. Denial of elective surgery is neither cruel nor unusal.
"I think you're entering troll territory-- if you want to avoid it, stop asking the same questions over and over again and start discussing people's responses. "
Perhaps you'd like to go back and reread some of the responses. I've tried to stick to discussing the responses, not asking the same questions "over and over again."
You didn't address the issue of women arriving in prisons pregnant, only offered doubt that they would be unplanned (have you met the average prison inmate? Getting in there kind of indicates a lack of planning skills) or that they would want to abort (ignoring the obvious fact that many women would not want to undergo even a planned pregnancy knowing they would give birth in jail and not see their child for years). You have also not addressed the issue of conjugal visits resulting in pregnancy.
"Denial of elective surgery is neither cruel nor unusal."
But torture is. And forcing a woman to undergo a pregnancy she does not want is torture. It may even end in murdering her, because she could die. She will suffer unbelievably. There's a reason people use childbirth as an example for "10 out of 10" pain and suffering. If she wants to endure that, whatever, her own choice, but forcing her to do that is cruel and unusual punishment.
You say "elective surgery" because you want to put it in the same category as a nosejob. But it's not. It's called elective because you probably won't DIE if you don't do it. Removing 100 lb tumors that aren't growing is also considered "elective surgery," but we're not going to tell inmates they need to suffer with a giant tumor. We provide many "elective" surgeries on the grounds that not providing them causes extreme pain and suffering on the part of the inmate. Abortions should be included in that.
Your response to North:
1) Belittles the percentages involved, but does not claim that no women are pregnant when arrested or sentenced.
2) Admits that guards do sometimes have (coerced) sex with inmates, which could result in them being pregnant.
So, there are two perfectly good reasons why there could be a pregnant woman in the penal system. If you're going to keep claiming that there aren't or shouldn't be, everyone's going to have to start ignoring you because you obviously aren't even following your own points.
"The amount of prisoners being denied abortions does matter. Denial of elective surgery is neither cruel nor unusal."
Are these two sentences linked? For the first one, as everyone has said, there are many people suffering from various conditions that are statistically rare. If there are a low percentage of people in the penal system with multiple sclerosis, which requires ongoing care but is not an emergency, should we deny it to them because most people don't need it? You have not answered any of the people asking WHY it matters what the percentages are. Mistreating ONE prisoner still matters.
As for the second sentence, many people have pointed out that the issue here is whether or not we should allow a surgery (which, in many cases would actually be a pill not a surgery), but whether or not we should force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term.
As an example, one thing you keep saying over and over again is that this doesn't matter because the number of women we are discussing may be statistically small. Are you going to explain that? Or are you just going to keep asking people how many women are pregnant?
There are some women who are pregnant in prison and would like to either have an abortion or have decent medical care so they can have safe pregnancies and deliver healthy babies. Why are you so against allowing either of those options? Why is it ok to do anything to them just because they are a (relatively) small group?
You could possibly have some decent points, but as long as you keep insisting that the small number of women involved means its o.k. to treat them badly, you've lost.
Otherwise, you know, you're just one person so if you get tortured or murdered its no big deal.
Admits that guards do sometimes have (coerced) sex
Rape.
Consensual sex is not unheard of. It is admittedly rare.
Yeah, I mean the term "coerced sex." To me, that's rape.
Seriously, you are trolling. You haven't properly explained anything you have written and you can't seriously expect your extreme viewpoints to be welcomed here so stop chewing everyone out.
That was an accidental "liked." I meant to hit reply.
The BJS stat was with regard to your comment that "criminals are not entitled to equal human rights."
Women may be pregnant at the time of incarceration or become pregnant during "conjugal visits" from their partners, which are still permitted in some prison systems. Additionally, (and this point was made before) sexual violence at the hands of male guards is rampant in the prison system.
According to the Guttmacher report:
Some 6–10% of women in custody at any given time
are pregnant, and about 1,400 women per year give birth while incarcerated.
I would imagine the most common means is that they were pregnant when they came into jail. Many probably didn't even know they were pregnant when arrested.
Also, conjugal visits are used as rewards for good behavior in many state prison systems. It would be possible, then, for a woman to become pregnant by her husband while incarcerated.
Here's the key you don't seem to be getting: It's not like they are able to work while in jail. They have no income. They have NO means to provide for their own needs. So we can torture/kill them by denying them the things they need but would pay for otherwise, like food, water, and medical care, or we can give it to them. Since LEGALLY an abortion is considered a part of medical care, abortions are cheaper than prenatal/delivery/fostering, and carrying a pregnancy to term is torture (unless it's voluntary, then it's self-inflicted torture and the prison is not to blame); it seems obvious that we should provide the few abortions that would be requested by inmates.
Joe, I think you need to stop. There are pregnant women who need medical care. It's not a subjective issue. Both abortion and the carrying of the child to term are legal and viable options for pregnant women. Inmates are not denied health care, and that's all there is to it. These incarcerated women, regardless of the number of them who are pregnant at any given time, have a medical condition and must be treated as such. You have entered troll territory, and you have made it clear that you don't believe female inmates should have access to each and every viable care option that they need, so, while I understand your concerns, I can guarantee you will not find support for your viewpoint here.
On the plus side, in conversing with him we have brought out many of the nuances of the issue.
Yeah, this might be a good comment thread to point people to if they are confused on why this is an issue.
Re: Sending away the children of illegal immigrants who give birth here, ie, deporting them when their parents are deported.
The only way this would work would be to change how we confer citizenship. The U.S. is one of the few countries where just being born on our soil makes you a citizen. Most countries have stricter rules-- your parents must be citizens or at least legally residing in the country, or something like that.
Re: Taking away the children of illegal immigrants who give birth here.
This could conceivably work if they were given a choice: either take your kid back with you when you are deported and they don't get citizenship, or leave them here and they will be a citizen, but either way you are being deported.
The problem with that is, we really don't have the resources to dump more kids in foster care.
I don't know the solution to this one. But not allowing women in immigration detention centers to have access to health care is not a solution to it.
I always thought the best solution was to say that if the parents are not here legally, their child is not a citizen. Alternatively, we could confer the dual citizenship on the child at adulthood- the child is a US citizen at age 18 unless his or her parents are also citizens.
Yeah, that's one solution. We could say that if you're here illegally, the birth doesn't count as having happened here. That would be a way to stop rewarding people for breaking the law.
I'm not sure I understand your second sentence though. The child becomes a citizen at 18 UNLESS the parents are also citizens? What exactly did you mean there?
Well, if the parents are citizens, the child is a citizen from birth, same as now.
If the child's parents (or any legal guardian) is not a legal citizen, they would be considered to be in the custody of their parents, and thus would remain with their parents wherever that might be until they are 18, at which point they could legally come to the US as a citizen independently of their parents. Thus, they could be deported with their parents in their parents' custody, but would still have citizenship conferred once that custody was up.
Ah ok. I see what you meant. That might work, but then we'd have a problem of people who grew up in other countries not speaking English and not being educated on American laws and stuff suddenly being citizens. (Yes, I read about Japanese mothers doing that on purpose, which I did not know before, but I don't think we should add to the numbers.)
I started to get really irritated reading the thread of comments, on how some really are trying to get around treating women as human beings just because they are female, pregnant or allegedly committed a crime. On the justice system itself, which we know to be racist, classist and at least for certain crimes, sexist, is it any surprise that the majority of female inmates are not highly educated, come from poor communities and are Black or Brown? Furthermore, finding numbers on how many of these women are falsely incarcerated while pregnant is another issue entirely.
On illegal immigrants giving birth here so their children can be American: this is where racist immigration policy comes to play. From some countries, (like Japan, Canada, most of Western Europe) no visa is needed to enter the U.S. for a short amount of time, like a vacation. Those who can AFFORD to come here on a holiday must deserve it, right? In Hawaii, dozens of Japanese women each year come here to have their babies, and return to Japan within 1 month so their children can be dual citizens. No one is throwing a fit about this, and it is not illegal. It is a system that privileges economics, nationalities and some skins tones over others. So I wholeheartedly disagree that "illegals" trying to have their babies here should be immediately deported and their children taken from them. This is outrageous.
I think that illegals should be deported, and think that their children should not be taken from them but instead deported with them unless they require life-or-death postnatal care. I agree with you, though, that it is a classist system. I think it's wrong for people to simply come here for a month to have their children so that they can become "Americans of convenience" with absolutely no ties to the country. Perhaps the U.S. should end the practice of someone automatically becoming a citizen if they are born here.
Its a possibility-- we could say it only counts if you're legally residing here, not illegally living here or legally here for a short visit. I don't know what all the rules and impacts would be, but I do agree that we should do something differently because the current system isn't working.
Maybe they would need a green card as opposed to just a visitor's permit?
Thanks for putting "illegals" in quotes. If you mean what I think you mean, I'm with you- using that term to describe a group of people makes it sound like their very existence is illegal. They may be working illegally, but that isn't the same thing. In AZ, this results in a difference of opinion on the immigration issue being played out semantically- one group refers to those individuals as "undocumented immigrants" and the other group uses "illegals."
I wonder about the phrase "no ties to the country." This is not true of most immigrants, documented and otherwise that I know. They have plenty of ties...which is why they want to be here...Sort of ventures into the are you "American-enough"?
Although the comments have sort of turned in the direction of immigration policy, I still think that the original post on providing prenatal, pregnancy and/or abortion care to incarcerated women is well-stated, especially in the emphasis on the "hodge-podge" of policies and irregularities governing these issues. But I also feel that this is echoed in the non-incarcerated population: how many of us have abortion services within 50 miles? Or have been denied contraceptives by pharmacists? Or are being denied the kind of birth or pre-natal care we need/want? The major difference of course, is that on the "outside" or out of detention centers we have avenues to take action on these things, while most women on the "inside" do not. This is especially true of women being held (for very long periods of time, BTW) in pre-deportation centers. I just feel like as we advocate for reproductive justice, in the broadest sense of the term, that we not leave out women who are incarcerated, for whatever reason. Their issues are no different than mine, in terms of our bodies and needing care. But they have no way to fight for themselves, are at the mercy of a state-funded diet/healthcare/ regime that is less than ideal and often views them as less than human.
so, question:
given the really fucked up policies that have been discussed here (forced sterilization, etc) how many women in the prison system are being FORCED to abort?
both sides of this - forced birth and forced abortion - are really fucking evil.
There is a fair amount of anecdotal evidence about forced abortions when there is assault by prison guards involved.
Sidenote: Personally, I think that any sex between a prisoner and a guard is coerced and therefore constitutes sexual assault. When one person has that much power over another, I find it difficult to process the possibility of a truly free choice.
I think its a situation where its really hard to determine if there ever was a free choice. For legal purposes I'm fine with having it always be illegal and count as sexual assault.
However, if you were a woman locked up for years and one of the prison guards was cute and was nice to you, can't you imagine possibly wanting to have sex with him? So, I mean, I can see situations where it could be consensual. The problem is if the guard initiates it, how would anyone know it was connsensual? For that matter, if the woman is scared of him she might do some acting, so how would HE even know if it was consensual? He'd have to put a big effort into making sure the women knew they wouldn't be punished for refusing him. Better to stay away from the whole thing.
Yeah, even though it could be consensual, for legal purposes it should be illegal. It's like how it's illegal to have sex with a high school student who is over 18. At minimum, to get around the issue of women who did consent not wanting to press charges (or who didn't, but feel pressured to not say anything), it should be prison policy to fire guards who have sexual relations of any sort with inmates.
Doesn't mean it's not consensual-- even inmates have the autonomy to choose a consensual relationship-- but definitely should be prevented.
Just to clarify-- you meant its illegal for teachers to have sex with their 18 year old high school students, not for anyone to have sex with an 18 year old high school student, right?
Do you know how to convert an FLV to an SWF file that's compatible with actionscript 3.0? I want to insert a video onto the welcome page of my Acrobat eportfolio, but the only file format that it will accept is SWF in actionscript 3.0. Please help!
Regerds,
Thanks, Computer Science degree AND Nursing school
(Harper is the source on this topic. While I'm a lawyer with good familiarity with these issues, I won't engage on the legal analysis because I simply can't improve on what Harper has done.) online doctoral degree AND business school AND Bachelor degrees