"Ms. Banks is currently incarcerated indefinitely because the State will not accept her $10,000.00 cash bail and she does not qualify for a residential drug treatment,” the court petition says.
Pregnant Alabama woman put in jail to 'protect the fetus' had to sleep on the floor after suffering bleeding condition
Many prisons had a difficult time keeping people safe during the COVID-19 crisis, but one Alabama jail kept a young woman in jail to protect her fetus.
Ashley Banks was arrested with an unregistered gun and a small amount of marijuana. Normally she would be let out on bond awaiting trial, but because she was pregnant and admitted to drug use, Etowah County put her in jail for three months,
AL.com reported. She's already at a high risk due to a family history of miscarriages.
"She’s not the only one, according to attorneys involved in her case," the report explained. "Several pregnant women and new moms accused of exposing their fetuses to drugs have been held for weeks or months inside the Etowah County Detention Center under special bond conditions that require rehab and $10,000 cash."
Rehab facilities aren't cheap and if women are being forced to fork over $10,000 and pay for rehab, there aren't a lot of options. In Banks' case, she didn't qualify for rehab from the state.
“The stress and conditions in jail and prisons, including lack of consistent access to standard prenatal care and mental health care, poor diets, poor sanitation, infestations with bugs and vermin, poor ventilation, tension, noise, lack of privacy, lack of family and community contact, can be detrimental to physical and mental health which can result in poor pregnancy outcomes for both the mother and the baby,” wrote Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB/GYN, an expert on incarceration and pregnancy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.