Woman Jailed for Getting Pregnant Dies From Medical Neglect
Thrown in jail for getting pregnant? That seems like a particularly absurd violation of women's reproductive rights. But it's actually an established policy in Allegheny County, PA. Cara reports at the Curvature that, for Amy Lynn Gillespie, becoming pregnant meant violating the terms of her work release under probation, and getting thrown in jail. Yet this story comes to an even more tragic ending, because Gillespie died while in custody from advanced pneumonia.
Gillespie's grieving mother has decided not to let the people who caused her daughter's death off the hook: she has a lawsuit against the Allegheny County jail warden, Allegheny Correctional Health Services Inc., the county itself, and a few other implicated individuals charging that medical neglect caused Gillespie's death. Though the young woman spent weeks complaining to guards of trouble breathing and mucus in her lungs, they refused to send her to access medical care until it was too late. The hospital, which is not charged in the lawsuit, says that Gillespie was beyond saving due to the long delay in getting her treatment.
Gillespie should not have been in jail in the first place: to imprison a woman for becoming pregnant is a violation of her human rights, and should not be a condition of probation or work release. To then neglect her, when the very pregnant condition she was locked up for meant that she needed extra medical attention, is horrifying. The crimes that got her in trouble with the law in the first place were minor shoplifting (when caught stealing food, she told the police officer she was hungry) and prostitution (which, though illegal, hurts nobody). Amy Lynn Gillespie's unnecessary death is nothing short of tragic, and highlights deep flaws with the Allegheny County prison system.
New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice is organizing a march to take place tomorrow, Novemeber 23rd, at noon outside the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail. In a press release reprinted at The Curvature, the advocacy organization states, "The death of any pregnant woman from preventable causes is reproductive injustice and is especially egregious in the custody of the Allegheny County Jail. We challenge the coercive and intrusive practice of conditioning work release on not getting pregnant. We must expose the criminalization of women and pregnancy as a threat to Human Rights that risks women’s health and women’s lives." Efforts earlier this year by the organization's The FOCUS on Women Campaign helped to pass a Senate bill banning the shackling of women during birth (it needs the support of the House to pass).
Photo credit: molly_darling
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Alex DiBranco
is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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