Dear Friends and Allies,
Last week, two monumental things happened: the Supreme Court agreed to hear another abortion case and NAPW celebrated a legal victory for our client, Chelsea Becker, whose murder charge for experiencing a stillbirth was dismissed.
On March 10 and 11, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights heard oral arguments in the case of Manuela et al. v. El Salvador. El Salvador has an absolute abortion ban. Under that law, women who have abortions go to jail along with women like Manuela who, in 2008, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after suffering a miscarriage.
NAPW provides a unique and base-broadening perspective on anti-abortion legislation, including laws that seek to establish separate status for fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses. As a result, allies often ask (typically at the very last minute) for our analysis of proposed legislation that on the surface appears to impact only access to abortion or to have no impact on pregnant people at all.
NAPW recently sent a thank you letter to New York State Attorney General Letitia James to thank her for her efforts to ensure women across New York and the nation are able to access safe, legal abortions during the coronavirus (COVID-19) public health crisis as part of the multistate coalition of 21 attorneys general.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
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The coronavirus pandemic, and our country’s lack of preparedness for it, give us an opportunity to make important observations and learn (or relearn) key lessons.
Some reports following New York’s passage of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) asserted that the RHA somehow increases the risk of gender violence. NAPW and Professor Julie Goldscheid (CUNY Law School) authored a statement challenging those claims, and other false claims linking laws criminalizing abortion and related feticide laws with protection of women from violence.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women and If/When/How wrote and organized a letter sent to the FDA, signed by organizations and experts in reproductive health and rights, public health, harm reduction, and HIV/AIDS. The letter opposes the recent warning letters targeting mifepristone and misoprostol as dangerous, and urges the FDA to remove the REMS for mife.
February 21, 2019
Broadening the Conversation About and Celebration of New York’s Reproductive Health Act (RHA)• The RHA protects and values all women – including those who support abortion rights, those who profoundly oppose them, and everyone in between.
Indiana v. Purvi Patel
Despite extensive public outcry, including petitions to the prosecutor, Purvi Patel was charged with feticide and ͞negligent treatment of a child͟ in Indiana in 2013-14 for allegedly seeking to terminate her pregnancy at home with medication.
Abortion Restrictions and Women’s Liberty: Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt ( NAPW and the NYU Law School Reproductive Justice Clinic organized and filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 14 organizations in this pivotal case challenging Texas laws that would have undermined the right to choose abortion and severely restricted women’s access to abortion services in that state.
