California’s Assembly Bill 732 —“An act to amend Sections 3405, 3406, 3409, 4023.5, 4023.6, and 4028 of, and to add Sections 3408 and 4023.8 to to, the Penal Code, relating to incarcerated persons”— seems to be stalled in the state senate.
Or headed for the dust-bin — back in April,
...State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D–San Diego) instructed the chamber’s 20 policy-centric authorizing committees to shed the number of bills it will undertake when the Senate returns to session [after the pandemic recess].
“In these times, our government has to change as well if we are going to succeed in doing the public’s business and protecting the public health,” Atkins’ memo to committee chairs reads…
...Since it entered recess on March 16 shortly after approving a blockbuster $1.1 billion coronavirus aid package, the heavy lifting in executing California’s response to the pandemic has been the exclusive purview of Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration.
Atkins informed policy committee chairs that they should sideline bills scheduled for consideration in an effort to “focus on the Senate response to issues that we must immediately address.”
“I have asked Senators to reconsider their priorities and reduce the number of bills they carry accordingly,” Atkins’ memo reads.
Capitol sources told The Sun that equates to a shelving of roughly half of the bills they were carrying during this legislative session….
to meet the combined barrage of environmental and civic disasters of recent years —covid19 most recently— and the refusal of the current federal regime to shoulder its obligations here … as almost everywhere in the nation, if obviously with particular animosity toward California and New York.
Quoting from “Pregnant women in prisons and jails should be guaranteed a minimum [medical] standard of care”, a CalMatters.org commentary opposing the jettisoning of AB732 in the senate’s reconsideration of priorities:
…..In 2016, the ACLU published “Reproductive Health Behind Bars in California.”, a disturbing picture of pregnant people in some county jails being shackled ... not provided timely prenatal care ... vitamins and nutrition supplements. In 2018, Candace Steel filed suit against the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office for placing her in isolation while pregnant and then ignoring her screams as she gave birth without medical assistance. In moving the case forward, U.S. District Judge James Donato wrote that the sheriff’s treatment of Steel was “a textbook example of deliberate indifference.” That’s legal shorthand for "conscious or reckless disregard of the consequences of one’s acts or omissions.”...
…National research on prisons found 3.8% of newly admitted women and 0.6% of all women were pregnant” in 2016.
In California, more than 5,000 women are held in state prisons and about 9,000 in county jails.
Lorena Garcia Zermeño with California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, another AB 732 sponsor, acknowledges that “some county jails are trying to do a better job than others,” but the “quality of reproductive health care shouldn’t be tied to where a person is incarcerated.”
That’s why more than 50 organizations signed on to support AB 732: to require a consistent standard of pregnancy and reproductive care for incarcerated people – in prisons and county jails.
So why is the California State Sheriffs’ Association opposing AB 732?
They claim the bill would create a local mandate, requiring services without funding for “specific, inflexible and costly prenatal and postpartum care for pregnant county jail inmates.”
A tried and true, but in this case, irrelevant argument.
The U.S. Constitution and legal precedent already require that health care, including reproductive services, be provided in prisons and jails.
The real issue is power, not cost.
Too many sheriffs consider their counties like territories in the Wild West, where their word is law.
Some provide decent care, others don’t….
...The bill would establish uniform standards for pregnancy and reproductive health care for state prisons and county jails, codifying regulations mostly in place at state facilities, but not throughout the state’s 121 county jails. Many of the regulations for reproductive care in California’s state prisons were adopted after successful lawsuits forced the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to accept standards guaranteed under federal law...
Bill status in CA Senate:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/… Status...AB732
Bill text:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov...Text...AB732
Passed in the Assembly:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov...Votes...AB732
History:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov...History...AB732
Analysis by Assembly floor, Appropriations, & Public Safety
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/… Analysis...AB732
How it would amend existing law (including re abortion):
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/...Compare...AB732...amends…
Email for the public to submit comments to the bill author[s]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/...login… AB732...Comments…
Find your California state assembly and senate members: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/