A new study shows hundreds of women in the United States have been arrested, forced to undergo unwanted medical procedures, and locked up in jails or psychiatric institutions, because they were pregnant. National Advocates for Pregnant Women found 413 cases when pregnant women were deprived of their physical liberty between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. At least 250 more interventions have taken place since then. In one case, a court ordered a critically ill woman in Washington, D.C., to undergo a C-section against her will. Neither she nor the baby survived. In another case, a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her from having an abortion. Were joined by Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “Weve had cases where lawyers have been appointed for a fetus before the woman herself, whos been locked up, ever gets a lawyer,” Paltrow says. “[Weve had] cases where theyve ordered a procedure over womens religious objections. And one court said pregnant women of course have a right to religious freedom unless it interferes with what we believe is best for the fetus or embryo.” The new study comes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on the right to abortion a right that has been under siege ever since.
Lynn Paltrow talking:
what we found when we sought to actually document cases is we found 413 cases between 1973 and 2005, after Roe was decided. We picked that period so we know the outcome of the cases. We know, from evidence we got, that there were many more of those cases, but we werentwe know because sometimes we were advising women who were, in South Dakota, taken into custody on suspicion of pregnancy, to protect the unborn child from her drinking, for example. What we found were their arrests, incarcerations, as you said, in prisons and jails, forced medical interventions. And some of these cases, we hadnt heard about, and even surprised usa case where a woman was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, something that occurs during pregnancy. She didnt comply with the orders for secondary follow-up testing, so they got a civilthey civilly committed her in the hospital, and they said she wasntshe was examined. She wasnt insane. She wasnt a danger to herself. But because they claimed that her mental health situation didnt enable her to go for needed prenatal testing, they could keep her locked up in the hospital. And one of the things we also found is that when those kinds of things happen, it doesnt mean that the woman or the baby is protected. She was locked in that hospital, and they never did the gestational testing.
But I think part of what we found, too, is, all of this, we sort of talk about it in a language thats very familiar for the last 40 years: Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion, the criminalization of pregnancy. But what we really learned is that whats at stake is the personhood of pregnant women, that when you look at what happened in these caseswomen deprived of their physical liberty; the case you mentioned, Angela Carter, deprived of her right to lifetheyre deprived of due process of law. Women are put in jail and have decisions about forced surgery made in the course of an afternoon. Thats basic due process rights. Weve had cases where lawyers have been appointed for a fetus before the woman herself, whos been locked up, ever gets a lawyer; cases where theyve ordered a procedure over womens religious objections. And one court said pregnant women of course have a right to religious freedomunless it interferes with what we believe is best for the fetus or embryo.
what we see, both in the criminal and civil context, is a disproportionate focus for punitive measures on women of color, particularly African-American women. We found that this disproportionality included the greater likelihood of felony charges, a greater likelihood of the doctor turning in an African-American woman. At the same time, we found these cases all over the country and against women of all races.
So what were really talking about not just abortion rights, we are talking not only about reproductive rights, but whether or not, in the guise of trying to end just abortion, we are going to remove pregnant women from the community of constitutional persons.
http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/early/2013/01/15/03616878-1966324.full.pdf+html
– source democracynow.org