Rachel Roth

Rachel Roth is a reproductive justice scholar, consultant, and
advocate whose work focuses on the impact of imprisonment on
women’s reproductive health and rights. She is proud to have worked
with the Correctional Association of New York on the new report
Reproductive Injustice exposing health care deficiencies in women’s prisons and to have organized for a new law guaranteeing minimum standards for the treatment of pregnant women in prison and jail in Massachusetts. She is the author of the book Making Women Pay: The Hidden Costs of Fetal Rights, co-author of the report Abortion Funding: A Matter of Justice, and a contributor to Defending Justice: An Activist Resource Kit. Recent publications include “She Doesn’t Deserve to be Treated Like This”: Prisons as Sites of Reproductive Injustice and “‘If They Hand You a Paper, You Sign It’: A Call to End the Sterilization of Women in Prison“ (written with Sara Ainsworth). You can follow her at MomsRising.

Can Prisons Take Care of Pregnant Women?

As the Massachusetts Legislature considers this year’s crop of criminal justice reform bills, one that has not gotten much attention is a measure to ensure proper treatment of pregnant women in jail and prison.