Years ago, I was shocked into muteness to find out that incarcerated women sometime suffer the practice of giving birth in shackles? Really? In the United States? In the post-antebellum United States (as in the Civil War, not Lady Antebellum)?

I first found out about it nearly a decade ago, when I met Kemba Smith at a criminal justice conference and heard her recount the story of her own shackled childbirth. The whole idea of such a thing seems incredibly cruel, not to mention absurd. What is the fear — that an incarcerated woman in labor is bound to go all “Kill Bill” on someone any second… mercilessly taking out the hospital room staff and karate chopping her way to freedom? It makes about as much sense as passing the newborn through a metal detector before entering the nursery.

Tonya Williams of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now has spent two years researching the treatment of pregnant incarcerated women in the state of Georgia. Not so shockingly, it ain’t a pleasant story. Dignity, anyone? She wrote an article about this issue a few months ago. And now, after decisions in Washington state and Arkansas found that the practice violates civil rights and a major class action suit pending in Illinois, NPR has also picked up story.