Malika Saada Saar's blog

Using restraints on women in prison during labor and delivery is cruel, inhumane and degrading and rarely justified on security grounds. Our video profiles a woman shackled during childbirth.

Despite its worthy mission, the White House common ground agenda needs some serious tweaking. There is a need to reframe the agenda in a larger discourse of honoring motherhood and honoring the sacredness of women and girls’ lives.

Please know that I recognize the need for privacy during a time of tragedy and attempted healing. But I ask that you consider how this might be a teaching moment that recognizes the sacredness of women and girls' lives.

Here in the United States, where the rights of freedom and equality define our history of struggle, American women and girls do not possess a freedom to live out our full potential -- unencumbered by violence.

Where is the reproductive rights community in the over-incarceration of mothers and the almost systematic severance in the mother and child relationship as a result of maternal incarceration?

A new reproductive health movement must include language about mothering with dignity. For vulnerable mothers, mothering with dignity means opportunities to heal from sexual violence, child welfare practices, education, and alternative sentencing to maternal incarceration and sentencing reform.