Schwarzenegger Vetoes Bill Banning Shackling of Pregnant Inmates

RH Reality Check: Schwarzenegger Vetoes Bill to Ban Shackling of Pregnant Women, by Jodi Jacobson:

Over the past year, we have invited a number of reproductive justice advocates to write about the barbaric practice still used in many United States prisons of shackling pregnant women, sometimes for transport, sometimes throughout their incarceration, and often while they are giving birth.  Articles have been written on this issue by Tonya Williams, Malika Saada Saar, Anna Clark, and Amie Newman, among others, and we chronicled the passage of anti-shackling bills in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington State.  The American Medical Association, the Association of Certified Nurse Midwives, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Human Rights Watch among other leading medical and human rights organizations oppose shackling of pregnant women.

Given the building consensus that shackling pregnant women is not only unnecessary--the vast majority are in prison for non-violent crimes in the first place--but  degrading to say the least, it was a shock to find out this morning that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill passed by the California Legislature to end shackling of pregnant women in his state. . . .