By BRIDGET CARTER
Deborah Moorhead will be one of about six women to give birth in prison this year.
Of the country's 237 women inmates, on average, six each year over the past five years gave birth while in custody, says the Department of Corrections.
A pregnant Mrs Moorhead - who, like her
husband, Jan, is starting a five-year jail sentence for the manslaughter of their 6-month-old son, Caleb - has the right to refuse medical treatment during her pregnancy.
But once the baby is born, authorities can intervene.
Caleb died in March last year after the couple failed to get him medical treatment for a Vitamin B12 deficiency brought on by his mother's strict vegan diet.
This week, it was revealed Mrs Moorhead is six months pregnant.
During her sentencing in the High Court at Auckland on Thursday, Justice Rhys Harrison said his sentencing notes should be sent to the prison and welfare authorities so the child would not suffer Caleb's fate.
The department's national policy allows a pregnant woman to follow her religious customs as long as the baby's safety is not compromised.
An inmate can have her partner at the birth. But included in the decision on that is whether the partner - for example, another inmate - may be a security risk.
She can also involve her partners, or support people, in her pregnancy decisions and activities.
An associate professor at the University of Auckland Law School, Pauline Tapp, said the law allowed Mrs Moorhead to decline any medical treatment during pregnancy, but not when the child was born.
There was huge debate about that right, she said, but all authorities could do was persuade a woman, through education, to seek medical assistance.
"What do you do? Have the mother under 24-hour guard?"
Professor Tapp said authorities had a range of powers over a child's welfare.
Child, Youth and Family Services could restrict a mother's say in her child's care. But it did not mean she had to lose the child forever.
A mother could have some say on certain things, for example, religion, but not diet. But an inmate would not be allowed day-to-day care of a child because, in New Zealand, children were not allowed in prison.
Peter Williams, QC, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said keeping pregnant women in prison was cruel and could give them psychological problems.
"We have always been right against women being kept in a prison where there is a young child."
By BRIDGET CARTER
Deborah Moorhead will be one of about six women to give birth in prison this year.
Of the country's 237 women inmates, on average, six each year over the past five years gave birth while in custody, says the Department of Corrections.
A pregnant Mrs Moorhead - who, like her
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