By Diana Kasdan, Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
That’s what Bethany Cajúne told me the first time we spoke about her experience in Montana’s Lake County Detention Facility. “No one should go through what I went through.” We filed a case earlier today to make sure that Bethany’s desire to protect other women becomes a reality.
This past March, Bethany voluntarily reported to the detention facility to complete an outstanding short-term sentence for traffic violations. At that time, she was approximately four to five months pregnant, raising five small children, and attending GED classes four days a week. She was also about to successfully complete her first year in a medication-treatment program for a diagnosed addiction to opioid drugs. What Bethany didn’t know when she reported to the facility was that detention officials would withhold her medication, which was prescribed to suppress withdrawal symptoms and facilitate Bethany’s recovery, and was now critical for protecting the health of her pregnancy.
Despite several attempts by Bethany’s treating physician and drug treatment counselor to ensure that Bethany continue receiving her medication, facility officials, including its chief medical doctor, denied her this care. As a result, Bethany suffered complete and abrupt withdrawal, experienced constant vomiting, diarrhea, rapid weight loss, dehydration, and other withdrawal symptoms, all extremely dangerous during pregnancy. Despite repeated warnings of the serious risk abrupt withdrawal posed to Bethany’s health and pregnancy, including miscarriage, the facility continued to withhold her medication. Instead of receiving appropriate medical care, she was at various times confined in an unsanitary and windowless solitary confinement cell, told to “tough it out,” and shackled during an ultrasound examination. It took the intervention of a public defender to secure her release so that she could resume the treatment. In the end, Lake County knowingly put Bethany’s health and pregnancy at severe risk for nine days.
Luckily, Bethany’s story has a happy ending. After she resumed treatment, Bethany regained her health and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She has also since completed her GED and is looking forward to the next chapter in her life. Part of moving on for Bethany is ensuring that no one else will go through what she went through.
Learn more about Bethany’s experience and the case the ACLU filed today on her behalf by watching this video:
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Wait... all this over some traffic violations? You've gotta be kidding me. That's absolutely disgusting.
True, and that's what lawsuits are for. Good luck! God bless the ACLU!
The video can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdeZ7qHWJSA
Sorry about that!
A family member of mine recently spent two weeks in detention on some financial-related charges. He had just had an artery blockage cleared and an arterial stent placed, and was on tons of blood thinners and blood pressure medications. We delivered his medications and instructions to the detention center, and he was (mostly) given them on schedule. However, when he was transferred to a different facility, they did not send his medications along. My brother had to drive a few hundred miles in one night to retrieve the medications then take them to the new facility.
My family member was supposed to be able to visit his cardiologist, and even though we obtained, faxed AND hand-delivered a letter from his doctor to that effect, we were not able to get him to any follow-up care for his arterial stent.
My family member is also diabetic, and was going barefoot on a cold, dirty floor (diabetics have to take good care of their feet to avoid infection). Only after pleading with medical personnel at the local detention center were we able to pass along a package of plain white socks for him to wear.
My brother and I also called multiple times to speak - very respectfully - with the facility nurse to ask if my family member's blood pressure was being monitored due to his status as a cardiac patient. We were told that yes, this was being done, but we found out later this was untrue.
This was my family's experience with medical care in local jails - and it's worth pointing out that not only were we active advocates for our family member, but we are middle-class, well-educated, and my brother actually works in corrections. According to him, these issues are much worse at the local level, in small detention facilities, than at the federal level where he works (the federal prison where he works as a corrections officer has strict policies about monitoring inmate health, and fully equipped infirmary units).
Thankfully, once my family member left the local detention center, we were able to get him to see his cardiologist - two weeks late.
Sadly, none of this surprises me after our experience.
This is just a really sad statement on how things like "compassion" and "common fucking sense" are forgotten in the machinations of the legal system. Anyone with half a brain knows that this is wrong - but the the people who are involved in this process aren't using their brains. They're acting as moving parts.
As a resident of Maricopa County, Arizona, I have to say that this sort of thing is horribly familiar to anyone remotely acquainted with the regime of our tinpot tyrant of a county sheriff, Joe Arpaio:
Pregnant Latina forced to give birth in shackles
this is the same guy who makes them wear bright pink boxers and live in tents during the summer isn't it?