She gave birth in a jail shower
Lost amidst the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, this popped up in my feed just this morning. It’s the “fetal personhood movement” put into practice. No one “protected” is being protected.
The latest example of outrageous behavior showing that the misnamed “right to life” movement (empowered by its allies in government) is really a hatred of women movement with no regard for actual children or the women who bear them. https://t.co/JQtc91IrO7
— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) October 15, 2023
Here’s the story from The Guardian:
In March 2021, sheriffs in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell on accusations that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.
Caswell, who was two months pregnant at the time, became one of a growing number of women imprisoned in the county in the name of protecting their “unborn children”.
But over the next seven months of incarceration for “chemical endangerment” in the Etowah county detention center (ECDC), Caswell was denied regular access to prenatal visits, even as officials were aware her pregnancy was high-risk due to her hypertension and abnormal pap smears, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday against the county and the sheriff’s department. She was also denied her prescribed psychiatric medication and slept on a thin mat on the concrete floor of the detention center for her entire pregnancy.
In October, when her water broke and she pleaded to be taken to a hospital, her lawyer says, officials told her to “sleep it off” and “wait until Monday” to deliver – two days away.
During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff gave her only Tylenol for her pain, the suit says, allegedly telling her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”. Caswell lost amniotic fluid and blood and was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child, according to the complaint and her medical records. She nearly bled to death, her lawyers say.
After she was taken to a hospital, she was diagnosed with placental abruption, a condition in which the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus and the fetus is deprived of oxygen, meaning there was a risk of stillbirth. The baby survived, but Caswell was immediately separated from her newborn.
“Giving birth to my son without any medical help in the jail shower was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. My body was falling apart, and no one would listen to me. No one cared,” Caswell said in a statement. “I thought I’d lose my baby, my life, and never see my other kids again.”
The lawsuit, filed by the non-profit groups Pregnancy Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center, is the first case to challenge the conditions for jailed pregnant women in Etowah county, which advocates say is ramping up its prosecutions. Data suggests the county is the national leader in arresting women under the guise of protecting their fetuses.
“The sheer level of callousness here and complete disregard for human suffering is part of a broader scheme to criminalize and incarcerate as many pregnant women as possible in a way that is unprecedented across the country,” said Emma Roth, senior staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice.
Alabama targeting women
Jezebel follows up with this:
AL.com reported last year that as many as 12 pregnant or postpartum people suspected of substance use were held in Etowah County Detention Center in August 2022 alone. The conditions some of these women have reported are horrific, and include being forced to sleep on the floor after being jailed for alleged marijuana use, and denied sanitary products for bleeding after being jailed within days of giving birth. One woman was jailed for allegedly using substances while pregnant until a pregnancy test she’d initially been denied showed she wasn’t even pregnant.
First they came for the Blacks, and I did not speak out—because I was not Black.
Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—because I was not an immigrant.
Then they came for the women….