Robin Levi News Today

No mercy or justice for marissa alexander or her children. today they face the first of many motherless mothers days, because when mothers go to prison, they arent the only ones that are punished. marissa alexander joins 65,600 women in federal and state custody who are mothers of 147,400 minor children. one of those women that gave birth in prison is here with me today. tina reynolds, advocates on behalf of incarcerated women as co-founder and cochair of women on the rise, telling her story. al...

Than 18 months would automatically lose all parental rights. >> you are stripped of parental rights for not having contact with the child, and youre not having contact because youre incarcerated. >> thats correct. and thats not something in the womans control at the time. so a lot of laws are put in place that impact the population of incarcerated women, whether theyre mothers or not, that are not thought through what the long term implications of the policies. thats why it is important that wom...

Daughter imprisoned takes a toll on a mother. it really rips the heart out of a mother to realize theres nothing she can do to ease the suffering, shame, guilt and all the things people experience on the inside. >> and it is expensive to take a phone call from your child incarcerated, it puts a financial cost on the moms, right, trying to take the phone call because of course as we know, for those of us with loved ones that are incarcerated, theyre collect calls, they enrich some private corpora...

To me like as we talk about incarceration, we may have viewers that say you give up your rights to be a mom when you break the law, when you go to jail. this is just the cost you pay. but i think i would like us to have a clearer understanding of why women end up incarcerated in the first place. >> as you mention, the vast majority of women in prison are there for nonviolent offenses, largely drug related or survival crimes, trying to pay to help your family, pay the bills. so thats first of all...

good morning. im melissa harris-perry. i was going to start the show with a different story today. i thought we had heard both sides of the same sex marriage issue. then yesterday mitt romney, who could have given a speech about his love of family and his plans for the economy added this remark, and drew a line in the sand. >> as fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debate from time to time, so it is today with the enduring institution of marriage, ...

one woman. >> did you hear that reaction by the audience? and given the reaction by the audience to romney, would president obamas mid week announcement be enough for those on the side of equality? at the same time, romney was speaking to students in lynchburg, virginia. the first lady was giving her own commencement address in greensboro, north carolina. >> i know that all of you know the story of the greensborough for and how they changed the course of our history. but since we have ...