HB 594 – Healthy Mother, Healthy Child
Primary Sponsors: Rep. Susan Fisher (D – Buncombe), Rep. Carla Cunningham (D – Mecklenburg), Rep. Verla Insko (D – Orange)
SB 639 – Healthy Mother, Healthy Child
Primary Sponsors: Sen. Smith Ingram (D – Bertie), Sen. Terry Van Duyn (D – Buncombe), Sen. Valerie Foushee (D – Orange)
This bill seeks to ensure healthy pregnancies for female prisoners and detainees.
The bill states that a correctional institution shall not use restraints on a prisoner or detainee known to be pregnant, including during labor, transport to a medical facility, delivery and postpartum recovery unless the corrections official makes an individualized determination that the prisoner presents an extraordinary circumstance. The restraints may be removed in such an extraordinary circumstance if a doctor or other health care professional treating the prisoner or detainee requests that the restraints not be used.
