Anti-abortion activists have sought full legal rights for embryos since the Seventies. Today, Alabamians are learning the true cost of that fight, from IVF access to miscarriage management and pregnancy criminalization.

Even as Southern jails go, Etowah County ranks among the most inhumane. There are no in-person visits allowed, and the only source of fresh air comes through small, barred windows near the ceiling of a concrete rec room known as “the sweat box.”

Investigations from watchdogs have long raised alarms about deficient medical care and inedible food at the jail. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center found detainees at Etowah “failed to receive medication because facility staff delayed, refused, or forgot to distribute it”; the Women’s Refugee Commission wrote in 2012 that “in no other detention facility have we received so many complaints of inadequate, inedible, and insufficient food.” In 2022, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ended a 28-year contract with the facility after identifying “serious deficiencies” at the jail.