SC lawmakers vote to ban shackling pregnant inmates in labor
South Carolina senators passed a bill that will ban the shacking or restraining of pregnant inmates or detainees housed in prisons and jails across the state.
The bill passed the Senate with a favorable vote Tuesday, after receiving unanimous support during a reading last week. The House passed the bill in April, with only three lawmakers voting against it.
S.C. Rep. Nancy Mace, the bill’s sponsor, said she was inspired to file the legislation after Congress adopted and President Donald Trump signed into law the First Steps Act, which included a ban on shackling pregnant women.
“I just could not believe that this is a practice still going on,” said Mace, R-Berkeley. “A woman in labor and delivery should not be shackled.”
Mace said banning shackling would provide “comfort not only for the mother, but the child.”
To become law, the bill must go to a conference committee, where a panel of House and Senate members will iron out their differences on the bill and send it back to the chambers for final approval before heading to the governor’s desk for his signature.
The legislation prohibits the use of leg ankle and waist restraints on pregnant prisoners or detainees. It also requires that law enforcement officials only handcuff pregnant women in front of their bodies, so they could brace themselves if they fall.
The bill also extends protections to women who have just given birth, prohibiting shackling during the first skin-to-skin contact with a newborn and during nursing unless there is a reason to believe the mother is a threat to herself or others. The use of waist restraints after birth also is prohibited in the legislation.
Senators added an exemption to shield law enforcement from liability if they do not know a woman is pregnant. They also added an amendment that would prohibit officials from doing invasive cavity searches of pregnant women unless they are suspected of having contraband, mandate that pregnant women receive enough nutritious food, keep pregnant women out of solitary-like housing in most cases and provide all incarcerated women with sufficient menstrual products.
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster will sign the bill into law once it reaches his desk, spokesman Brian Symmes said. Once the bill becomes law, it will bring South Carolina up to the standards held by numerous national and international law enforcement agencies.
Thirteen other states have restricted the use of restraints on pregnant and postpartum women as of June 2019, according to data from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Twenty-one states allow medical personnel to request the immediate removal of restraints. In all, 32 states other than South Carolina have passed some legislation limiting the use of restraints in some way.
Mace’s bill, if it becomes law, would codify protections for pregnant inmates from shackling — a practice the state Department of Corrections already banned in early 2019, prisons spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.
Inmate advocates celebrated the bill’s advancement. The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina and the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network celebrated the bill’s advancement.
“We are thrilled to be one step closer to ending the cruel and inhumane practice of shackling incarcerated people during labor, childbirth, and postpartum recovery,” said spokeswoman Ali Titus of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, urging lawmakers to send the bill to the governor’s desk.
Ann Warner, CEO of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network, said, “We are encouraged that the Legislature may put an end to this inhumane practice and encourage policymakers to continue to work to ensure that all people have the support they need to have healthy pregnancies, deliveries, and births.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 5:11 PM.
