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No mercy or justice for marissa alexander or her children. today they face the first of many motherless mother's days, because when mothers go to prison, they aren't 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. also a lecturer at new york college. and also here, reverend vivian nixon, executive director of col...

Than 18 months would automatically lose all parental rights. >> you are stripped of parental rights for not having contact with the child, and you're not having contact because you're incarcerated. >> that's correct. and that's not something in the woman's control at the time. so a lot of laws are put in place that impact the population of incarcerated women, whether they're mothers or not, that are not thought through what the long term implications of the policies. that's why it is important that women have a voice in what goes on in the criminal justice system, even though women are only 17...

Daughter imprisoned takes a toll on a mother. it really rips the heart out of a mother to realize there's 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, they're collect calls, they enrich some private corporations that make a lot of money from the phone calls, but they take a lot of money out of the pocke...

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 that's first of all what we're seeing for women inside prison. again, more than two-thirds of them are the primary car...

good morning. i'm 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, marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman. >> did you hear that reaction by the audi...