Comments on: Shackled During Childbirth

By: Feministe » Few Protections for Pregnant Prisoners

Feministe » Few Protections for Pregnant Prisoners — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:40:06 +0000

[...] 06

Few Protections for Pregnant Prisoners
Posted by Jill @ 9:40 am

Zuzu touched on this a few days ago, but the mistreatment of female [...]

By: NYMOM

NYMOM — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 03:09:08 +0000

…always trying to drag women down to their level…

…in essense even when we are giving birth to them, their adult alter ego is working on screwing us up…

By: NYMOM

NYMOM — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 03:07:43 +0000

Men insisted on women being shackled during labor claiming it wasn’t gender neutral to chain men who went to the hospital or court and not chain women as well…

This is the fault of men…no one else…always trying to drag women down to their level…

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 02:19:19 +0000

Yeah, having given birth twice, I can say there would be no running, shiving or violence of any sort running through my mind. Pretty much all that you are thinking of is the fastest and best way to get the child out of you. I twisted and turned and moved so much during labor, I cannot imagine trying to do that shackled. Seriously, giving birth is painful enough, I see absolutely no reason to cause additional pain, cause harm to the newborn, etc… I could see soft restraints in very limited cases when the woman giving birth is known to be a violent offender with a flight risk, but not ever without painkillers because that to me is gross negligence.
On the topic of hospital staff safety, when I was 7 months pregnant I accompanied one of the residents I work with (he is severely developmentally disabled and has a history of violent behavior) to the hospital because he had had a tooth extracted earlier in the day that was still bleeding profusely. Somewhere around 4 am (yeah, you gotta love the care and priority shown to those who can’t fill out your how did we do surveys) they came in and without explaining anything to him attempted to shove a needle in his mouth. Well, I would say within 5 seconds they were paging security as I was holding his head and two people were holding down either side of him. It took 8 people in all (security made me get away as soon as they saw I was quite pregnant) to hold him down to put the restraints on him and a ridiculous amount of drugs to sedate him, but never once did anyone get hurt. And I would guess that he is considerably stronger than most females giving birth. It’s not that hard to put safeguards in place to protect hospital staff.

By: Nomie

Nomie — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 21:43:08 +0000

Robert believes we need to shackle inmates in labor to protect the innocent.

Then what of the fetus/newborn? The baby’s completely innocent, unless you believe in genetic transference of sins somehow. But the lack of ability to move on the mother’s part may indeed cause harm to the child during labor. So who deserves greater protection, the adults assisting and the guards with the prisoner, or the innocent newborn baby?

By: Tapetum

Tapetum — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:14:33 +0000

The law in many states is wrong.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:00:01 +0000

Aren’t most of these women incarcerated for non-violent minor offenses anyway? Stuff like fraud, drugs, etc.? The idea that they might use their childbirthing period as a time to stab some guards with a shiv and escape (with amniotic fluid dripping down their legs and a crowning baby peeking through their cervix, no less) is so unbelievably moronic that I can hardly believe I took the time to respond to such drivel.

By: Ledasmom

Ledasmom — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:02:04 +0000

I can’t personally attest to the relative painfulness of kidney stones and labor, but I have had a migraine that laid me out for most of a day, including vomiting about every ten minutes, muscle tremors and so forth, and I would rather have another migraine than go through labor again. And refusing to give anaesthesia? Fine, if it’s what the woman wants – I had one of mine without any sort of artificial pain relief – but not fine without her consent; as Dianne said, an epidural pretty much removes the possibility of escape, unless the woman in question wants to pull herself out of the hospital by her hands, presumably trailing blood and other bodily fluids as she goes. That, I’m thinking, would be the slowest escape ever.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:56:55 +0000

Robert:
Unless you, personally, have passed a really fucking huge kidney stone, or shat a bowling ball out of your ass, you have no idea what kind of pain you are talking about.

I have not given birth, but I have had some NASTY cramps, and let me tell you — I wasn’t thinking about anything other than the pain. Labor, especially hard labor, is much worse than the cramps we get during our menstrual cycles. Shackling a woman going through that is just plain cruel. I seem to remember there being, if not an actual LAW, at least language in the Constitution which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”. I’d say something that increases the distress of a woman in labor and can permanently damage her or her fetus falls under that heading.

You are a self-righteous jackass without a clue on this one, boy-o — just because a law is on the books doesn’t make it RIGHT. Until you have a clue, please refrain from making a bigger jackass of yourself. I suggest you see if you can witness an actual labor sometime and then get back to us on the amount of pain and distress a woman goes through, and whether she actively NEEDS to be restrained at that point.

By: Dianne

Dianne — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 12:46:35 +0000

The law in many states disagrees.

Then the law is an a$$, an idiot. Or at least needs to be changed in this case.

Shackling isn’t necessary and interferes with medical care that is necessary. And while we’re on the subject of stupid decisions, what is with this “no pain killers” thing? Giving a woman in labor analgesia is only going to make it less likely that she’ll try to escape or assault someone and would make the labor not so nasty for her. So what’s the problem? The guards don’t get as good a hard on if she’s not suffering so much? Come to think of it, that’s probably the reason for the shackling too…a little non-consentual S/M for the guards.