Five pregnant women imprisoned in Etowah County, Alabama released to “protect” their fetuses

Five pregnant and postpartum women held on drug charges in an Alabama prison have been released after lawyers argued the terms of their bail were “unconstitutional.”

One of the women, 23-year-old Ashley Banks, was arrested two days after finding out she was pregnant in May this year and charged with marijuana possession. She said she confessed to smoking cannabis two days ago and was charged with “exposing a child to chemical danger”. AL.com.

Under Alabama law, this meant that she was held in the Etowah County Jail on a $10,000 cash bond to protect her fetus, and could not leave unless she entered a drug rehab program.

Even when the Banks family raised money for their cash bail, the payment was refused because the terms of their bond required them to secure a place at a rehab facility. But the professionals who evaluated her twice found her ineligible for a place because she did not have a substance use disorder.

Burns was held in prison for three months, despite being at serious risk of becoming pregnant and sleeping on the floor due to overcrowding, according to National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), which represented Burns and the other four women.

The women were arrested for “chemical endangerment of a child,” a law originally enacted in 2006 to protect children from the dangers of methamphetamine labs. But in 2013, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the law must also cover “unborn children,” and prosecutors across the state began bringing more charges against pregnant women.

There have been more than 150 similar “chemical hazard” cases in Itowa County since 2010, according to NAPW, more than any other county in Alabama.

At least 10 women have been held in the Etowah County Jail on “chemical endangerment” charges in the past three months, according to a review of inmate listings by The Daily Beast. Advocates say the number could be higher, according to conversations with their clients.

Another woman, Hayley Burns, was arrested in July, six days after the birth of her second child. After a drug test at the hospital, Burns tested positive for methamphetamine and Subutex, a drug used to help treat opioid addiction, according to a news release from the Itoah County Sheriff’s Office. Her lawyers say the test results were from legal and over-the-counter drugs.

While she was in prison for two months, Burns was not allowed to see her young child or newborn, was denied postpartum care, and fell into severe depression, according to NAPW.

“My little girl is constantly asking what she did wrong and why she can’t go home,” said Craig Battles, a friend of Punk’s, Tell AL.com.

Lawyers working with NAPW filed subpoenas arguing that bail conditions imposed on three of the women were unconstitutional, and they succeeded in changing local policy. Etowah County lowered the bail bond to $2,500 and released two more women. However, they still require women to pay for pre-trial monitoring and pregnant women must undergo drug testing every 48 to 72 hours, according to Emma Roth, Staff attorney at NAPW.

Roth hopes this new policy will mean fewer pregnant women and postpartum women being held indefinitely.

“This is a really important victory and a huge step forward,” Roth said, “but until the statute is amended or repealed, we can say that pregnancy and drug use will not be criminalized, but rather treated as public health issues.”

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