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.
Tennessee v. Anna Yocca
Anna Yocca was accused of attempting to terminate her pregnancy at home with a coat hanger. She presented at an emergency department and was admitted to the hospital. Some days later she consented to having cesarean surgery and gave birth to a premature baby.
Georgia v. Kenlissia Jones
In 2015, Kenlissia Jones was arrested and held without bond in Georgia on the charge of "malice murder" for allegedly using the drug misoprostol to have an abortion at home, outside of a medical setting. After NAPW and local allies spoke out again st the arrest, the County prosecutor concluded that there existed no legal grounds in Georgia for charging a pregnant woman with murder for terminating her own pregnancy (and issued a press release to that effect). While the murder charge against Ms. Jones was dropped and she was released from jail, this occurred only after she had endured the trauma of an arrest, incarceration for several days, and violation of her rights to medical and personal privacy.
Manuela and her family
NAPW, working with the Reproductive Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, submitted an amicus curiae brief in the case of Manuela and her family to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In February 2008, a woman identified as Manuela went to a hospital in El Salvador after experiencing an obstetric emergency at home.
