Alabama State Rep. Rolanda Hollis (D) (YouTube).
A bill has been introduced by an Alabama lawmaker to provide pregnant women who have been sentenced to prison in the state with the option to postpone their sentences until after they have given birth.
Alabama State Rep. Rolanda Hollis, who represents Birmingham as a Democrat, presented HB138 on Feb. 6. She contended that the passing of this bill would benefit both parents and their children.
Hollis expressed to a legislative committee that the bill aims to support children by removing the shame associated with being born in prison, enabling a brief period for postnatal care, ensuring that a child’s upbringing commences at home rather than in prison. She argued that it is safer for both the pregnant woman and the baby to deliver at home and to receive late-term care outside of a prison environment.
The bill, entitled the Alabama Women’s Childbirth Alternatives, Resources, and Education Act (CARE), provides that each woman is screened for pregnancy upon being admitted to a jail, unless she declines the testing. A woman who tests positive for pregnancy would then be released on bail so long as the court determines she does not pose a significant threat to herself or others.
Under the bill, women who are pregnant at the time of incarceration would be sentenced to pre-incarceration probation to be served until 12 weeks after the woman gives birth, at which point the woman would be required to surrender herself. The time would then be credited to the woman’s sentence and the probation would be served with electronic supervision. Pregnant women would also be required to report any loss of pregnancy and the court would then have discretion as to the timing of a self-surrender for the woman.
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The bill provides that failure for a woman to surrender as required would constitute a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $6,000 fine.
According to the National Institutes of Health, over 55,000 pregnant people are incarcerated each year in the U.S. In a 2013 piece published in the American Medical Association ethics journal, Doctors Jennifer G. Clarke and Rachel E. Simon said, “Given the mother’s status as an offender, pregnancy and birth are frequently handled in ways considered unacceptable in any other circumstance,”
“Two aspects of this care deserve particular attention: the shackling of women in labor and the treatment of mothers and newborns after birth,” the doctors continued.
Alabama has a particularly high incarceration rate of 898 per 100,000 people.
“The urgency of this legislation is underscored by the current state of Alabama’s correctional system,” women’s advocacy group RestoreHER said in a statement that also noted that Alabama has one of the highest female incarceration rates in the region and the third-highest infant mortality rate in the country.
Hollis is the same lawmaker who introduced legislation in 2020 requiring every man to get a vasectomy within a month of his 50th birthday or the birth of their third child. The “Forced Vasectomy Bill” did not make it out of committee. Hollis has also spearheaded efforts to end “period poverty” in the Yellowhammer State.
Alabama House of Representatives unanimously passed HB89 on Thursday, which focuses on providing presumptive Medicaid coverage for prenatal care. The bill, introduced by Rep. Marilyn Lands, Democrat representing Huntsville, will now move to the Alabama Senate. If the measure becomes law, the state’s Medicaid obligations would increase by over $1 million per year, over $726,000 of which would be derived from federal funds
