Ex-Inmate Who Was Denied an Abortion Sues

A former Ventura County jail inmate, who was pregnant while behind bars, has sued Sheriff Bob Brooks, the county and the private company that provides inmate medical care, alleging their policies prevented her from obtaining an abortion.

In the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Cynthia Torres states she was denied her right to an abortion because she could not pay the county’s inmate transportation fee to get to a facility where she had made an appointment for the procedure.

By the time of her release in January, she was about six months pregnant and too far along to secure a safe abortion, according to the suit. The child was born in May.

Both the county and its medical provider, California Forensic Medical Group Inc., deny the charges.

Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Ken Kipp, who oversees the county jail system, said several inmates have had abortions while in custody. The county’s policy is that inmates can have elective procedures off-site if they can pay the doctors’ bills and the cost of a deputy escort. If they are indigent, the medical group provides their care at no charge, he said. The group refers obstetrics and gynecological patients to Ventura County Medical Center, which has performed abortions for inmates, Kipp said.

“We have no restrictive policy in terms of the county jail,” Kipp said. “It’s a regular practice that female inmates are driven to family planning appointments through VCMC. It happens on a regular basis.”

Monterey-based CFMG, which provides care for inmates in 21 California counties, said it ensures care in a timely fashion regardless of whether inmates can pay. On several occasions, the company has facilitated abortions for inmates throughout the state, said Dan Hustedt, a company vice president.

Hustedt declined to discuss the case in detail, saying, “We’re confident we’ve followed the appropriate policies and procedures.”

But Torres’ attorney, Earnest Bell, said his client was not told the county would provide her with an abortion, even as the jail and the county sent her to prenatal classes.

“I don’t think this lady really cared where it was done,” Bell said. “She was told, ‘You have to cough up $200 and change’ ” to pay for a sheriff’s escort to the facility where she had planned to have the abortion, which was covered by her insurance. “When you’re in jail, you don’t have a job. Where are you supposed to get the cash?

“If California Forensic Medical Group doesn’t want to perform the abortion and wants to send her to the county to do it, fine,” Bell said. “But they didn’t make it happen.”

He said his client was concerned about giving birth because she was a drug user and already had several children. The son she gave birth to has medical problems, according to the lawsuit.

Bell, meanwhile, is representing two other plaintiffs in claims against California Forensic Medical Group.

“I have no reason to believe they treated her differently than anybody else,” he said of Torres. “I think the bottom line is, these people are cheap and they don’t want to provide medical care.”

Simon Heller, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York, said inmates across the country face obstacles when they seek abortions.

Heller’s group is involved in a lawsuit in which a woman alleges that the Louisiana facility in which she was incarcerated created so many procedural obstacles that it delayed her planned abortion until it was too late.