Ossoff hears about abuse of pregnant women in Georgia prisons, jails

ATLANTA, Ga. - Georgia women testified on Wednesday about the mistreatment pregnant women face in Georgia prisons and jails.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Human Rights Subcommittee.

He said more women testified as part of his subcommittee’s ongoing inquiry.

One of the women who testified said that she was forced to give birth into her underwear at the Clayton County jail, despite testifying that she pleaded for months for medical assistance.

The senator’s staff also said she repeatedly told jail staff that she was pregnant over a period of months, and when she went into early labor, she had to give birth in her underwear.

“I felt faint, like I was going to out, but I could see all these people around me. My baby was born premature, in my panties. The lead jail infirmary staff looked in my panties and started to panic. The jail staff told me nothing, wrapped my baby in my dirty sheets, and left. Paramedics eventually came and got me and took me to the hospital. My baby was in the NICU. They allowed me to see him, but I was handcuffed to a wheelchair. I felt like that I was wrong. I did not like that, and it wasn’t necessary at all. That was it — that was all the time I had with my son,” Tiana Hill testified.

She then testified that after giving birth and being taken to a hospital, she then moved into solitary confinement on suicide watch. Her baby then ed away five days later.

“The jail wouldn’t give me any information about my baby once I left the hospital. For the first four days of his life, he was okay. I was able to call the doctor, but then on the 5th day of his life, my birthday, the mental health unit at the jail suddenly told me that my baby ed away. They wouldn’t give me any information as how it happened. I didn’t know, I still don’t know, and I don’t know where my son’s remains are. Instead of giving me mental health , the jail just put me in solitary on suicide watch,” Hill testified. “This shouldn’t happen to any mothers. Ever since I arrived at the jail, no one listened to me. They didn’t care, and they did not care about my baby. The jail just assumes if I’m there, I am not a good person. No woman who is pregnant should have to go through this.”

A doula and advocate serving pregnant and postpartum women behind bars also testified. According to the release, she was pregnant while incarcerated in Georgia 40 years ago.

I was threatened with solitary confinement if I complained about being in pain or needing to see a doctor. I was placed in solitary confinement repeatedly, I’d estimate 150 times, mostly when I was in my postpartum recovery. In solitary, I felt extremely depressed and suicidal, because my body was changing, so I just cried, and I was always feeling hopeless. I was unaware that I had postpartum depression and wasn’t screened for it. I cried, and I kept ringing the buzzer for medical help, but that only delayed my food and delayed getting period products,” said Tabatha Trammell, Founder of Woman with a Plan.

She said that the women she serves today encounter the same challenges that she faced and testified that the postpartum period is “extremely challenging” for incarcerated women in Georgia.

In his closing statement, Sen. Ossoff said that the Subcommittee sustains its focus on the humanitarian crisis behind bars in the state of Georgia and the United States because “this is, in my view, the most extreme civil rights problem happening in the U.S. today. Only by shedding light on it, calling attention to it, demanding and enacting change will it change.”

“We have obligations at the Federal, state, and local levels to treat this with the urgency that it merits. Human beings are enduring when it is in my view cruel and unusual punishment. And I just remind the public as we close, we are talking about pregnant women and their newborn infants. And I don’t know what could be a more relevant measure of a society’s humanity than how we treat pregnant women and newborn babies,” he said.

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