media mention

I’m an Incarcerated Nurse — Women’s Health in Prison Is Hell and Will Only Get Worse Under Trump

“With this new administration and Congress, we’re really on the precipice of a fundamental shift away from health coverage and health care,” says Gretchen Borchelt, VP for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center. “Right now, Congress is debating these massive cuts to the Medicaid program, which will affect low-income folks throughout the country, and, in particular, women in their reproductive years, two-thirds of whom are enrolled in Medicaid. There is an outright hostility right now toward health access and health care. Women in prison are the canary in the coal mine.”

… When a woman is pregnant in prison, she basically loses all control of her body — from the birthing process to whether or not she actually wants to give birth. And given the current administration, this could become the norm on the outside as well. “The Trump administration is seeking to exert more control and take rights away from pregnant women,” says Borchelt. “They are trying to upend long-standing laws that protect against pregnancy discrimination, carve pregnancy out of federal law guaranteeing emergency medical care, and want more data collection into pregnancy outcomes. Being pregnant should not mean that you have fewer rights.”

… Prisons favor health care strategies that take control away from women, and this is something that should concern and outrage all women. Our bodies’ basic biological functions become weapons of control — this is true from the prison to the state legislature to the U.S. Supreme Court, as evidenced by the dissolution of Roe v. Wade. “Pregnancy has already been criminalized, but it’s getting worse,” Borchelt says. “Pregnancy Justice documented more than 200 cases in the year after Roe was overturned, in which a pregnant person faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth.

… And while women on the outside are legally allowed to marry and same-sex relationships are generally accepted, that could change under the current administration. Already, trans folks inside and out are fearful that their identity and autonomy will be entirely abolished. How long until this kind of wanton control spreads to the wider country? Borchelt agrees: “For LGBTQ+ individuals, for pregnant people, for people who have capacity for pregnancy, we really are just at the beginning stages of a whole host of harmful actions yet to come.”