Yet the researchers concluded that however inconsistent prison-based services are, the obstacles to equitable reproductive health care also permeate the communities these women come from:

At the end of 2005, more than 1.2 million were in custody—in jails or prisons, or on parole or probation. These women disproportionately represent marginalized sectors of our society; they are predominantly women of color, poor, unemployed and undereducated and thus may not have adequate access to health care in general, and reproductive health services in particular. Although many of them may spend only a short period of time in custody, their involvement with the correctional health system may represent one of their few opportunities to access medical care.

Prison should not be a woman's first opportunity to obtain quality medical care, though neither should it replicate the systemic problems that limited her opportunities on the outside. President Obama recently started redirecting federal family planning resources toward comprehensive clinical services and away from abstinence-only sex education programs. It remains to be seen whether some of the country's least free women will see brighter prospects for reproductive freedom under the new administration.

Image: Lucinda Hernandez, almost eight months pregnant, is incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Corona. San Francisco Chronicle / Mark Savage