Pregnancy in Prison
Pregnancy is hard–even with adequate healthcare, financial resources, and a robust support system of friends and family. Now imagine pregnancy in prison. Recent studies indicate that approximately 5-10% of women—meaning tens of thousands of women—are pregnant when they enter prisons. More than 2,000 babies are born to women who are incarcerated every year. People who are pregnant in prison require ample support to carry their pregnancies to term. Yet, pregnant prisoners don’t receive the care they need during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.
For example, one woman in Tennessee’s Montgomery County jail gave birth to her child alone in her cell. She asked for medical help for over an hour before giving birth. And her story is not unique. Jazmin Valentine gave birth in the Washington County Detention Center alone on the jail floor. She received no help from nurses or sheriff’s deputies while she was giving birth alone, screaming in her cell.
Incarcerated people are entirely reliant on correctional facilities to fulfill their basic human needs. Jails and prisons are responsible for providing food, shelter, and adequate healthcare. But stories like Jazmin’s and others like her demonstrate how often prisons and jails fail to provide pregnant people with the support they need. This has lasting effects on both the mother and the child born in prison, creating an intergenerational chain of trauma because of inadequate care.
And even when pregnant prisoners seek redress for their traumatic experiences, jails and prisons use legal doctrines like qualified immunity to evade liability, making it difficult to hold officers accountable. The affirmative defense of qualified immunity has two prongs. First, the officer must have violated a constitutional right. And second, the right the officer violated must have been clearly established at the time of the violation to ensure the officer was on notice that their conduct violated the Constitution. But courts often resolve the question of qualified immunity by beginning with the second prong: whether the right was clearly established at the time of the violation.
In the case of Brown v. Dickey, two Cumberland County correctional officers stayed in the hospital room while Ms. Brown gave birth. They mocked Ms. Brown about her appearance and her baby, stating that she and her baby constituted “one and a half inmates” and suggesting that she should name her daughter after the jail. Ms. Brown testified that the officers’ presence made her feel “nervous,” “embarrassed,” “scared,” “numb,” “lonely,” and “terrified.” So much so that although she hoped “to have immediate skin-to-skin contact with her baby and breastfeed her,” she felt too “disgusted” and “dirty” to expose her body again to the officers.
On summary judgment, the officers argued that they did not violate Ms. Brown’s clearly established Fourth Amendment rights by observing her naked body during her stay at the hospital. The district court denied summary judgment, but the officers appealed.
The MacArthur Justice Center wrote an amicus brief in the case arguing that the officers violated a Fourth Amendment right that was clearly established at the time of the violation. And the First Circuit agreed, affirming the district court’s ruling that the correctional officers’ behavior towards Ms. Brown violated clearly established law and summary judgment was not warranted. The court agreed that the doctrine of qualified immunity should not shield officers from liability for their unconscionable behavior.
But for every victory, there are a thousand stories that go unshared from people unable to navigate the complex procedural barriers to filing suit in federal court. If we don’t reform our system to increase protections for pregnant people in jails and prison, we will be responsible for allowing these human rights violations to occur on our watch.