Despite being the only population in the United States that is constitutionally guaranteed the right to medical care, individuals who are incarcerated are overwhelmingly and deliberately denied access to proper and, in many cases, necessary healthcare.

Changes must be made in order to combat this.

Prisons and jails relfect and perpetuate social disadvantages as well as racial and class stratification. Poor women and women of color, two groups that have been and continue to be the most marginalized and oppressed in our society, are drastically overrepresented. These are the same women that have faced the most reproductive oppression, control, andexploitation throughout history.The continuation of this within the prison system is nothing new and it must be stopped.

Women in prisons and jails routinely face medical abuse and neglect while they are incarcerated. Every aspect of a woman's reproductive life is affected by their imprisonment; their right to an abortion, the conditions of their pregnancy and birthing, the relationships they are able to have with their children, and more.

-Around 200,000 women, or approximately 10%, are incarcerated in the United States.

-Four to five percent of women enter prison or jail pregnant.

-1,400 to 2,000 pregnancies occur each year. -62 to 65% of women are mothers of children under the age of eighteen at the time of their incarceration.

Given these statistics and the fact that most women are incarcerated during the height of their reproductive years, it should be obvious that these are the women most in need of reproductive and pregnancy related health care. Yet in spite of this, and their constitutional right, prisons and jails lack necessary and adequate general and reproductive health care.