Tag Archives: medical

Reports of Gunfire at Naval Medical Facility in San Diego Trigger Intense Police Response

by JaneKWJXontroh Posted on January 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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Panic broke out at a sprawling naval medical center in San Diego Tuesday morning as police responded to reports of gunfire at the campus, and the possible threat of an active shooter. Occupants were asked by the hospital complex to evacuate, or shelter in place, while roads were closed and schools placed on lock-down.

But as events unfolded across the morning at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, it remained unclear what actually happened at the campus, and whether or not it constituted an “active shooter” situation. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries.

Capt. Curt Jones, the commanding officer of Naval Base San Diego, told reporters Tuesday morning that the initial report of thee gunshots came from one witness just prior to 8 a.m., local time. Jones added that “as of right now we have found absolutely nothing that would substantiate” a report of an active shooter. A law enforcement official also told NBC that an initial sweep of Building 26 found that no forensic signs any shots had been fired. Jones said sweeps of that building and others were ongoing to ensure that there were no casualties.

“This is a case where we are pursuing the information we have to its logical conclusion,” Capt. Jones said.

Nevertheless, the police reaction was swift and strong, among multiple different law enforcement agencies, after the medical center posted this message to Facebook, warning occupants to “run, hide or fight”:

The San Diego Police Department confirmed that shots were fired at the facility, according to NBC Bay Area, but other details were not immediately available. The station is also reporting that two California Highway Patrol officers were seen entering the facility through an emergency room entrance at about 8:30 a.m. local time, and “by 8:45 a.m., a SWAT truck was seen storming the facility.”

The Naval Medical Center San Diego is located on a sprawling campus with a hospital and other medical facilities, just east of the city’s airport, and northeast of downtown San Diego. The center has more than 6,500 military, civilian, contractor, and volunteer personnel, according to NBC San Diego.

Three San Diego Unified schools were temporarily placed on lockdown, the school district’s Twitter feed reported shortly after 9 a.m. local time. A short time later the lockdown was lifted, but students and staff continued to shelter in place. Classes resumed just before 10 a.m. local time.

We will be updating this breaking news post with more reporting as it becomes available.

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Reports of Gunfire at Naval Medical Facility in San Diego Trigger Intense Police Response

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Raw Data: Lead Poisoning of Kids in Flint

by BiancaBlackwood Posted on January 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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I wanted to get a read on historical levels of lead poisoning of children in Flint, Michigan, so I put together the chart on the right. There’s no consistent data available for the entire 20-year period, but I think I made fairly reasonable extrapolations from the data available.1 What you see is very steady and impressive progress from 1998 to 2013, with the number of children showing elevated blood lead levels (above 5 micrograms per deciliter) declining from approximately 50 percent to 3.6 percent.

Then Flint stopped using Detroit water and switched to Flint River water, which corroded the scale on their lead pipes and allowed lead to leach into the water. The number of children with elevated lead levels rose to 5.1 percent and then 6.4 percent.

In late 2015, Flint switched back to Detroit water. Preliminary testing suggests that this had a beneficial effect: the number of children with elevated lead levels dropped back to 3.0 percent. However, these numbers are still very tentative, so take them with a grain of salt.

1Here are my data sources and extrapolations. For early years, only data for children above 10 m/d was available, but later years showed both 10 m/d and 5 m/d, which suggests a rough factor of 6x between the two. Also, some years only show data for Genesee County, but other years show both Genesee and Flint, which suggests that Flint levels are about 1.6x higher than Genesee.

1998-2000: From Michigan Department of Health & Human Services chart here, extrapolated from Michigan —> Flint (factor = 0.87) and 10 m/d —> 5 m/d (factor = 6x)
2001-2004: From 2005 MDHHS report here, page 54, extrapolated from 10 m/d —> 5 m/d
2005-13: From MDHHS data here.
2014: From Hurley Medical center data here, adjusted for Genesee —> Flint (factor = 1.6)
2015: From Hurley Medical center data here, slides 10-11, adjusted for Genesee —> Flint.
2016: From preliminary MDHHS data for post-switch levels here.

Full spreadsheet here.

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Raw Data: Lead Poisoning of Kids in Flint

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The GOP Is Running on Fear — And I’m Here to Help

by lqr8rg5rr Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh man, I’m sure glad I don’t live in Iowa. Or New Hampshire or South Carolina or Nevada or Alabama or Minnesota or Oklahoma or Alaska or Vermont or Arkansas or Tennessee or Colorado or Georgia or Massachusetts or Texas or Virginia:

Scenes of masked men toting guns and waving black Islamic State flags. Refugees scrambling across the border. Fires and explosions.

It’s not just a Donald Trump ad. Most of the Republican presidential contenders and their allies are now waging campaigns focused on fear….Former Florida governor Jeb Bush delivers a similar message in a new spot that begins airing in New Hampshire this week. “We are at war with radical Islamic terrorism,” he declares….And in Iowa, a new ad by a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas features a frightening montage of Islamic State militants, refugees on the run and rolling tanks before mocking Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as a lightweight.

So that’s what we’re getting? A multi-month campaign to see who can out-fear the rest of the field? Well, good luck with that. I’ll even help out. Remember Ebola? That was a great bit of fearmongering. A true classic. But now we have something even better: Zika. Here’s the dope:

The Zika virus, a rare tropical disease that’s causing a panic in Brazil — because it may lead to babies being born with abnormally small heads — has now made its way to Puerto Rico….”It’s spreading really fast,” said Scott Weaver, the director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “I think the Zika virus is going to be knocking on the doorstep in places like Florida and Texas probably in the spring or summer.”

Zika is sort of an invisible virus: if you contract it, you’ll either feel nothing or, at most, flu-like symptoms that shortly go away. But it might cause birth defects. Maybe. There’s no need to include that qualifier, though. This is an unseen but implacable menace making its way across our borders and threatening our unborn babies. And what is Obama doing about it? Nothing, I’ll bet—and I really don’t think there’s any need to check on that. So let’s get those ads cranking, guys!

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The GOP Is Running on Fear — And I’m Here to Help

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The New, Ugly Surge in Violence and Threats Against Abortion Providers

by TrentLangston11 Posted on November 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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Firefighters battle a blaze at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington September 4, 2015. KREM.com/AP Photo

Three people were shot dead and nine others were injured Friday at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, the first time since 2009 that anyone has been killed in an incident linked to activity at an abortion clinic. The attack comes amid an exponential increase in threats and violence against abortion providers since the release of a series of viral—and widely debunked—videos.

While police have not discussed the alleged motives of the suspect, who has been arrested, the attack began at the clinic. According to authorities, the gunman entered the facility Friday afternoon and began shooting. During an hours-long standoff, he exchanged fire with police, killing one officer.

Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress’ videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood selling fetal issue, harassment, threats, and attacks against abortion providers, their staff, and facilities have surged dramatically across the country, according to new numbers from the National Abortion Federation.

The clinic attacked on Friday is part of the Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains affiliate, which was featured in the Center for Medical Progress’ videos.

“Since the series of highly edited, misleading anti-abortion videos was released in July, we have seen an unprecedented increase in hate speech and threats against abortion providers,” says Vicki Saporta, the president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, which has been tracking violence against providers since the 1970s.

“We have been quite worried that this increase in threats would lead to a violent attack like we saw” on Friday, she added.

The Federation is suing Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress for allegedly setting up a sham biomedical organization and misrepresenting their identities in order to gain access to and record a federation meeting.

Abortion providers have grappled with harassment and threats for years, but the tide of vitriol began rising dramatically in July, after the first video was released. Soon after that, an anonymous reader posted a message on Fox Nation’s website.

“I’ll pay ten large to whomever kills Dr. Deborah Nucatola. She should be summarily executed. I’ll do it myself if no one else does.” A month later, another physician, Dr. Savita Ginde, came home to find 50 people protesting outside her door. They left fliers around her neighborhood that said, “Savita Ginde Murders Children.”

Nucatola and Ginde both work for Planned Parenthood and were featured in videos surreptitiously recorded by the Center for Medical Progress. They are among a handful of abortion providers who have been catapulted into the public eye by the group and its public face, David Daleiden. But harassment has not been limited to the providers spotlighted in the series—the first video of which has received more than 3 million views on YouTube.

Clinics targeted

Violence against reproductive health clinics dates back to at least Roe v. Wade, when anti-abortion animus swelled in reaction to the 1973 landmark Supreme Court case. In 1982, an Illinois-based provider and his wife were kidnapped, and three clinics in Florida and Virginia were bombed in the same year. In 1984 there were more than 25 cases of bombings and arson attacks across the country.

Coordinated attacks reached a fever pitch in the early 1990s. Anti-abortion activists, led by Operation Rescue—a group whose president, Troy Newman, is also currently the secretary of the Center for Medical Progress—created large-scale human blockades in major cities across the United States. These protests prevented anyone from leaving or entering clinics, which led to hundreds of arrests by law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the number of violent incidents also increased, and in 1993 Dr. David Gunn was shot and killed in the parking lot of a clinic he worked at in Pensacola, Florida. Gunn had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue. In 1994, an abortion doctor, a clinic escort, and two receptionists were killed in two separate incidents.

Congress enacted the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994, making it a federal crime to injure, intimidate, or interfere with abortion providers or those seeking their care. But in January 1998, an abortion clinic security guard was killed during a bombing at his workplace. And in October, abortion doctor Barnett Slepian was murdered in his home.

Two weeks after Dr. Slepian’s death, Attorney General Janet Reno created the Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers, led by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and staffed by investigators from the FBI and other federal agencies. Violence plummeted in the years following the clinic access law and the creation of the task force. According to the FBI, in 2012 violations of the clinic access act made up only 2 percent of the bureau’s civil rights cases.

A new surge

But harassment, threats of violence, and attacks against clinics have gone up again following the release of the Center for Medical Progress’ videos in July, according to recent National Abortion Federation court filings. That month, incidents of harassment against Planned Parenthood facilities increased ninefold compared with June, and those numbers continued to rise through August.

In the four months following the release of the videos, there have been at least four suspected arsons that targeted abortion clinics, compared with just one in all of 2014 and none in 2013. There have been at least five cases of vandalism since August. In comparison, there were 12 total cases of clinic vandalism in all of 2014 and just five cases in 2013, according to federation figures.

In one of the recent vandalism cases, a young man entered a Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire and destroyed medical equipment, phones, and computers. This month, an unidentified person smashed the windows of Kentucky’s only full-time abortion provider, twice in three weeks.

Anne, the executive director of the clinic, who declined to give her last name for security reasons, told Insider Louisville that in its 20 years of operation, the clinic had never before been vandalized.

The deaths of three people at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood on Friday were the first slayings linked to an abortion clinic in six years. The last was in 2009, when the abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered at his church in Wichita, Kansas. Scott Roeder, who was found guilty of Tiller’s murder, said he shot the doctor because “preborn children’s lives were in imminent danger.”

The FBI has also reported an increase in the number of attacks on reproductive health care facilities across the country since the videos were released in July. A spokesperson from the FBI was not immediately available for comment.

“It’s a concerning time,” says duVergne Gaines, director of the National Clinic Access Project.

The project, which is a program of the Feminist Majority Foundation, has trained clinic escorts and helped clinics increase security with surveillance cameras, alarm systems, bulletproof glass, and vests. When Gaines spoke with Mother Jones earlier this month, she said “the trifecta of efforts excoriating, and inspiring individuals to go out and target providers by demonizing them” leaves providers vulnerable, and that they were lucky no one had yet been hurt.

“But we fear that may be around the corner,” Gaines said at the time.

The violence is intended to silence providers and drive them away from their jobs, but officials from the National Abortion Federation and the National Clinic Access Project say women should feel safe going to clinics. Law enforcement agencies are aware of the issue, they added.

Indeed, the number of abortion providers decreased 38 percent between 1982 and 2000 and continues to decline today. According to research from an anti-abortion group, the number of surgical abortion clinics dropped to 582 in 2013, down from more than 2,000 clinics in the early 1990s. And in the last two years, surgical abortion clinics have been closing at a rate of 1.5 clinics every week.

And though it’s hard to pinpoint every cause for the decline, “stigma and fear of violence…are powerful barriers to abortion provision,” according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

For some abortion doctors, violence only deepens their resolve to provide abortion care. LeRoy Carhart quit doing surgery and opened his abortion practice in 1991 after a massive fire on his family’s 65-acre Nebraska farm. The day after the fire, Carhart said he received a letter that said the abortions made his property a target for the fire. No one was ever convicted.

The physician now operates a clinic in Nebraska and travels to Maryland each week to perform abortions. For security reasons, he says he avoids staying in the same hotel twice and tries to take different routes to work.

“After the fire, it totally changed everything. That’s when we decided to just do abortions full time,” Carhart said, “It was my way of getting back.”

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The New, Ugly Surge in Violence and Threats Against Abortion Providers

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This Judge Just Condemned Wisconsin’s Abortion Law as Unconstitutional. Read the Withering Ruling.

by SheenaKatz51691 Posted on November 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that a Wisconsin law requiring abortion providers to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional.

The law that was struck down is known as a TRAP law—short for “targeted regulation of abortion providers.” According to the Guttmacher Institute, Wisconsin is one of eleven states that have required similar admitting privileges. (Courts have blocked these requirements in six of those states.) The law is particularly effective in conservative regions where hospitals are less likely to grant those privileges to abortion providers. The law’s supporters say the law ensures continuity of care if complications arise from the procedure. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes that less than one half of one percent of all abortions involve major complications.

The 2-to-1 decision comes at a time when the constitutionality of TRAP laws are in question nationally. Just over a week ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Texas’ “HB 2,” which decreased the state’s number of abortion clinics from 41 to 18 by implementing a host of TRAP laws. The ruling, due next year, will be the most notable reproductive rights ruling since Roe v. Wade.

Judge Richard Posner, writing for the 7th Circuit majority, stated that the regulation qualifies as an “undue burden” and that the medical grounds for such a requirement is “nonexistent.” Posner also had some words for abortion foes: “Opponents of abortion reveal their true objectives when they procure legislation limited to a medical procedure— abortion—that rarely produces a medical emergency.”

Posner—nominated by President Ronald Reagan—is known for his tart legal arguments, as we’ve noted previously. This case is no exception:

A great many Americans, including a number of judges, legislators, governors, and civil servants, are passionately opposed to abortion—as they are entitled to be. But persons who have a sophisticated understanding of the law and of the Supreme Court know that convincing the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey is a steep uphill fight, and so some of them proceed indirectly, seeking to discourage abortions by making it more difficult for women to obtain them. They may do this in the name of protecting the health of women who have abortions, yet as in this case the specific measures they support may do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion. This is true of the Texas requirement, upheld by the Fifth Circuit in the Whole Woman’s case now before the Supreme Court, that abortion clinics meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers—a requirement that if upheld will permit only 8 of Texas’s abortion clinics to remain open, out of more than 40 that existed when the law was passed.

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This Judge Just Condemned Wisconsin’s Abortion Law as Unconstitutional. Read the Withering Ruling.

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Planned Parenthood Launches Texas Legal Offensive to Fight Funding Cuts

by LateshaGriggs Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Planned Parenthood announced on Monday that it’s suing Texas officials for stripping the organization of Medicaid funding, saying that the decision unfairly singles out Planned Parenthood and prevents women from accessing their chosen medical provider in violation of federal law.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said the federal lawsuit aims to protect the 13,500 women on Medicaid who go to the organization for health care services. Ten patients also joined the lawsuit, all of whom are currently covered by Medicaid and would have to go elsewhere for health care unless the lawsuit is successful.

In October, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Medicaid funding for the organization, citing safety concerns brought to his attention following the release of the now-infamous (and widely discredited) videos showing some of Planned Parenthood’s staff discussing fetal tissue donation. Three days later, state officials also subpoenaed Planned Parenthood for the medical records of patients who donated fetal tissue in the past five years, in an attempt to find criminal activity. A Planned Parenthood representative called the move “unprecedented” and denied any wrongdoing on the part of the organization.

Texas is one of a handful of states that have taken aim at Planned Parenthood over its fetal tissue donation, a practice that is legal in the United States. Arkansas, Utah, and Alabama have also tried to cut Medicaid funding to the group, despite a warning from the Obama administration that doing so could violate federal law. In October, a federal judge blocked Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood in the state, saying the move would cause “irreparable harm” to the 5,200 women who depend on the organization for health care.

Many states have also launched investigations in the organization, though none so far have found any wrongdoing.

“Texas is a cautionary tale for the whole nation,” Richards told reporters this morning. “Officials who oppose women’s health may think they can bully us out of providing care for our patients, but we will not back down, and we will not shut our doors.”

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Planned Parenthood Launches Texas Legal Offensive to Fight Funding Cuts

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Here’s What the Latest Investigation of Planned Parenthood Just Revealed

by PollyWillshire Posted on November 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Read more MoJo coverage of attacks on Planned Parenthood


How the Attack on Planned Parenthood Is Hindering Cures for Deadly Diseases


Congress Just Created a Benghazi Committee for Planned Parenthood


Texas Subpoenas Records of Patients Who Donated Fetal Tissue


A Federal Judge Gave an Epic Defense of Planned Parenthood That Everyone Should Read


Planned Parenthood Stops Taking Reimbursements for Fetal Tissue Donations


Congress Is Holding A Hearing On Planned Parenthoodâ&#128;&#148;Here’s What’s At Stake

Government investigations of Planned Parenthood in response to a series of deceptive videos produced by anti-abortion activists continue to lead to nothing.

On Monday, a 48-page report released by Washington state’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson stated that his team’s investigation into allegations about Planned Parenthood profiting from sales of fetal tissue “found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure.”

After undercover videos filmed by David Daleiden and his anti-abortion group, Center for Medical Progress, went viral, legislators across the country called for probes of Planned Parenthood operations. So far, none of these investigations have turned up any wrongdoing.

What that have done, however, is have a chilling effect on important research into cures for diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, as Mother Jones reported last month. That Planned Parenthood was cleared of any misconduct in Washington is particularly notable because Washington is one of only two states that allows patients to donate tissue to scientific research. (California is the other.)

Despite the lack of evidence from these state investigations, Republicans in the US Senate continue their attempts to defund Planned Parenthood; they are currently working to pass a fast-track “reconciliation” package that aims to dismantle key components of Obamacare and rescind Planned Parenthood funding.

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Here’s What the Latest Investigation of Planned Parenthood Just Revealed

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Ben Carson: Medical Fraud is Bad, Unless One of My Friends Does It

by AugustuDow Posted on November 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ben Carson really, really hates medical fraud. Seriously: “There would be some very stiff penalties for this kind of fraud,” he wrote a few years ago, “such as loss of one’s medical license for life, no less than ten years in prison, and loss of all of one’s personal possessions.”

Unless, that is, the fraudster happens to be Carson’s best and oldest friend. In that case, you write a letter to the judge saying, “there is no one on this planet that I trust more than Al Costa.” And it worked. Costa was a dentist who pleaded guilty to billing insurance companies for procedures he didn’t perform, but in the end the judge sentenced him only to a year of house arrest in his 8,300-square-foot mansion.

AP has the story here. But if you want some serious details about this whole case, Russ Choma has them right here at MoJo. Carson, needless to say, insists that Costa was innocent all along and was railroaded by the justice system. That’s how things work in Carsonworld. There’s the good guys and the bad guys, and Carson knows in his heart exactly who they are. As for facts, I guess they’re just chaff thrown out by secular progressives to destroy good Christians.

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Ben Carson: Medical Fraud is Bad, Unless One of My Friends Does It

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Clinton Calls for Liberalizing Marijuana Laws

by epxxatlw Posted on November 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton moved ever so very slightly to the left on marijuana legalization over the weekend, after generally ducking the issue so far in her presidential campaign. During a town hall in South Carolina, the Democratic front-runner said that she’s in favor of changing the way the federal government regulates weed in order to allow researchers to explore the benefits of medical usage.

Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule 1 drug, alongside substances like heroin*, which means the government sees no legitimate uses for it. Clinton said that, as president, she’d reclassify marijuana to Schedule 2, the category for drugs like prescription painkillers. It would remain an illegal drug for everyday consumption but would be eligible for possible medical uses.

Clinton stopped short of the position taken by her leading Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator called it “absurd” last month that the feds treat marijuana the same way they do drugs like heroin, and pointed to the fact that anti-marijuana laws are enforced far more frequently against African Americans than against white users. Last week, Sanders introduced a bill in the Senate that would end the federal ban on marijuana. States could still ban recreational use under Sanders’ proposal, but states like Colorado and Washington that have already legalized the drug would no longer have to fear federal intervention.

Marijuana legalization is quickly becoming one of the top social causes among Democrats, with polls now showing over half of the country behind ending the prohibition. But Clinton has been tentative when discussing drug reform, responding to questions by saying that she’s keeping an eye on the state-level legalization experiments while still making up her mind on where she stands.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the classification of cocaine. It is a Schedule 2 drug, less strictly regulated than marijuana.

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Clinton Calls for Liberalizing Marijuana Laws

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6 Years Ago, New York Banned the Shackling of Pregnant Inmates. So Why Are These Women Still Being Restrained?

by LelaSandoval Posted on October 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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When Maria Caraballo delivered her daughter in 2010, she was handcuffed to the hospital bed.

“They didn’t even remove my cuffs for me to hold my baby,” says Caraballo, who at the time was serving a prison sentence in New York. “I had to hold my baby with one hand for two to three seconds. They didn’t take my handcuffs off until after I was stitched up and in the prison ward, and I didn’t see my baby until the next day.”

Caraballo gave birth to her daughter a year after it became illegal to shackle incarcerated women during childbirth in New York. But her experience wasn’t necessarily unique: New evidence published earlier this year suggests many women continue to be shackled in violation of the law. And now, six years after restraining pregnant inmates was first restricted in the state, an anti-shackling bill is once again headed to the governor’s desk.

Handcuffs, waist chains, and ankle shackles are commonly used to restrain inmates who are transported out of prison, whether it’s for a trial, facility transfer, or medical attention. And though it’s hard to imagine someone making a break for it during labor, shackles are routinely used to restrain women inmates during childbirth, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has called the practice “inhumane.” It’s “almost never justified by the need for safety and security for medical staff, the public or correctional officers,” the ACLU has said.

The medical community agrees. “Physical restraints have interfered with the ability of physicians to safely practice medicine by reducing their ability to assess and evaluate the physical condition of the mother and fetus, and have similarly made the labor and delivery process more difficult than it needs to be,” wrote the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in a 2007 statement, “overall putting the health and lives of the women and unborn children at risk.”

The American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the American College of Nurse Midwives also oppose shackling during childbirth, as do the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Correctional Association, two of the country’s primary prison accreditation organizations.

In the last decade, more states have passed laws restricting the use of shackling on inmates during childbirth. New York became the sixth state to ban restraints during birth when in 2009 then-Gov. David Paterson signed the Anti-Shackling Bill, which prohibited shackling during labor, delivery, and recovery. And since the passage of New York’s ban, at least 15 states followed suit.

But a study published earlier this year by the Correctional Association of New York (CA), a nonprofit organization with the authority to inspect prisons, found that 23 of the 27 women inmates interviewed who’d given birth while incarcerated had been shackled in violation of the law. There are an estimated 30 births each year under the supervision of state and local corrections, according to the correctional association.

“The 2009 law did seem to curtail the practice of shackling during delivery in the hospital” says Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the association’s Women in Prison project. “But we found that many women experienced shackling during labor, and many experienced it right after they gave birth and on the way back to the prison.”

Kraft-Stolar attributes the continued shackling of these women to a lack of education. Some correctional officers may not know about the law, and without oversight, there’s no way to enforce it. That’s why Kraft-Stolar and other criminal justice reform advocates are hopeful that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will sign Assembly Bill 6430, an update to the 2009 law that would ban the use of restraints on pregnant inmates at any point during their pregnancy and until eight weeks after childbirth.

Passed by both chambers of the state legislature in June and now waiting for the governor’s signature, the bill would also require that every pregnant inmate be notified of her right to not be shackled. It would allow shackling in extraordinary circumstances—with the approval of both the superintendent and chief medical officer and only when a woman is threatening to hurt herself or someone else. However, each incident would have to be reported to the state.

The legislation has a long list of backers, including New York’s correctional officers’ union, which recently expressed its support.

“While it is our duty to monitor all inmates at all times, there are better uses of limited resources than to continue a practice that applies to several dozen pregnant inmates in our prisons who do not pose an immediate threat to the safety and security of our officers and our facilities,” the union said in a statement earlier this month.

And Kraft-Stolar says the legislation can only do so much. “The best solution to the problem of shackling is to not lock women up in the first place,” she says. “Prisons are breeding grounds for human rights violations, and the best way to avoid those violations is to keep people out of prison.”

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6 Years Ago, New York Banned the Shackling of Pregnant Inmates. So Why Are These Women Still Being Restrained?

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