U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff heard more testimony on allegations of abuse of pregnant and pregnant women in prisons. This time, Ossoff focused on women in prisons and detention centers in Georgia.
“The subcommittee continues to focus on the humanitarian crisis behind bars in the state of Georgia and across the United States because, in my view, this is the most extreme civil rights problem facing the United States today,” Ossoff said.
Wednesday’s meeting was the second in the Senate Human Rights Committee’s investigation. One witness, Tiana Hill, testified that Clayton County Jail staff did not help her until she went into labor.
“Instead of taking me to the doctor, they kept me in jail. I had to lie on a hard metal bed and endure labor,” Hill said. “My baby was in the NICU. They allowed me to see him, but I was confined to a wheelchair. That was all – that was all the time I had with my son.”
Hill’s son died five days after birth. A second witness, Tabitha Trammell, a doula and advocate for pregnant and postpartum women, testified about her treatment 40 years ago.
“I was in so much pain during my pregnancy,” Trammell testified. “I was constantly hungry because the prison staff never gave me enough to eat. If I complained about pain or expressed a desire to see a doctor, I was threatened with solitary confinement. I was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement.”
Ossoff said federal, state and local governments have an obligation to act.
