Demand Governor Cuomo Sign Uncompromised Anti-Shackling Legislation to Protect Pregnant Inmates and Their Babies
- by: Susan V
- recipient: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
In 2009 New York Governor Paterson signed a bill banning the shackling of women inmates during pregnancy, labor and recovery. But the prison system’s abysmal failure to enforce this ban has led the NY Legislature to pass yet another Bill, A06430, to strengthen the first.
Since the new bill passed in September, with overwhelming support in both houses, women’s advocacy groups, medical associations and New York Times editorials have strongly urged Governor Cuomo to sign it.
But now the bill is being held up and amended primarily due to opposition from the New York State Sheriffs’ Association (NYSSA), even though it is supported by the Correctional Association of New York (CANY) and others, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Association of University Women and NYS American College of Nurse-Midwives, to name only a few.
Reality Check says NYSSA opposes the bill’s alleged “unfunded mandate” and claims it threatens “public safety.” But CANY says that “position is far from reality,” supporting its own stand in detail in its “2015 Anti-Shackling Bill Talking Points.”
CANY and others insist the new bill is necessary because, despite the 2009 law banning this degrading, inhumane practice, “women continue to be illegally shackled during childbirth," shackling threatens the lives and health of pregnant inmates and their babies and it’s unnecessary.”
Support this petition to demand Governor Cuomo sign into law a strong anti-shackling bill that does not compromise on terms that strengthen the 2009 ban on shackling pregnant inmates, before and after delivery.
Dear Governor Cuomo;
We, the petitioners, insist that you sign into law a strong anti-shackling bill that ensures strict enforcement by all state and county jails of the original ban on shackling inmates during pregnancy, delivery and recovery.
CANY reports that since the 2009 law came into effect, “widespread violations” have occurred. For example, CANY “interviewed and surveyed 27 women who gave birth while in state corrections custody in the five years after the 2009 law was enacted and found that 23 of those 27 women were shackled in violation of the law.”
Many believe this new law, which includes measures that ensure enforcement of the shackling ban, are necessary because, according to CANY, “Shackling puts the health and lives of women and babies at risk” and “causes pregnant women physical and psychological pain. It heightens the risk of blood clots, limits the mobility needed for a safe pregnancy and delivery, and increases the risk of falling, which can cause serious injury and even fetal death." Other health concerns CANY notes are that “Shackles can interfere with doctors’ ability to care for their patients and delay access to medical services during emergencies,“ and “Shackling during postpartum recovery prevents women from healing and bonding with their newborns."
Given these legitimate and serious concerns, it’s no wonder that leading experts on women’s health “oppose shackling during childbirth,” along with numerous women’s and children’s advocacy groups.
Furthermore, insists CANY and others, “Shackling is unnecessary” because:
Security can be effectively maintained by correction staff when pregnant women are off prison grounds. State and local correctional facilities generally send two officers, one or both of whom are usually armed, to guard an incarcerated person when s/he is taken off prison or jail grounds. Under the bill, if corrections administrators feel that staff is not sufficient to protect the safety of a pregnant woman or the people around her, they can invoke the exceptional circumstances exception and shackle the woman using handcuffs in front of the body.
And most important, no one needs an expert to confirm that Shackling women during pregnancy and labor and while caring for their newborn babies and/or recovering from delivery is degrading, inhumane and a violation of human rights.
Stories recounted by victims of the many violations of New York’s 2009 law should, alone, be enough to convince anyone of the need for this bill. One new mother told Reality Check that when she took her newborn daughter to a pediatrician outside the prison she was kept “completely shackled” in “belly chains, black box, and leg irons” in a wheelchair with the infant car seat on her lap. Even when it was time to feed her baby, all the restraints were kept in place and the guards “kind of just put the baby up” to her chest, as she tried to maneuver the bottle into her baby’s mouth.
Other accounts tell about the pain and discomfort of going through labor with one ankle shackled to the bed, a punishment that can only be called barbaric - beyond cruel and unusual.
For these and many other reasons documented by numerous medical and advocacy groups and news reports and in the name of common decency and humanity we urge you to sign an uncompromised anti-shackling bill into effect without further delay and ensure that strict protections of pregnant inmates and their babies remain intact within the bill.
Thank you for your time.
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