Dear Friends and Allies,
NAPW knows that we can adhere to the recommendations for social distancing while still fighting for social justice. As we monitor the rapidly changing developments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking every measure to protect the well-being of our staff while not wavering in our commitment to advocating for reproductive health, rights, and justice.
In an 8-part series, the New York Times Editorial Board squarely addresses the core issues, intersectional frameworks, and cases NAPW has been working on for more than 17 years. It recognizes NAPW's leadership in defending the rights of pregnant women.
Dear Friends and Allies,
Why support National Advocates for Pregnant Women? Because none of us would be here without them.
The fact is none of us would be here without someone who became pregnant and gave birth. Yet the health care pregnant people need to survive and to thrive (and what the survival of the species requires) is categorized separately as reproductive health - as if it is something that only a small "special interest" subgroup of humans need.
Dear Friends and Allies,
As you have no doubt heard, the U.S. Supreme Court announced last week that they had agreed to hear the case of June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee, a challenge to a Louisiana law restricting access to abortion. NAPW has long been working with allies to anticipate and develop strategies for preserving the right to choose abortion - even with the Supreme Court currently stacked with anti-abortion appointees.
The war on drugs involves criminal laws that prohibit possession and distribution of certain substances by certain groups of people. It also responds to a public health issues (drug dependency) through the criminal law system. Laws that prohibit common human activities - such as drinking alcohol, using drugs, and having abortions have all failed to stop those activities.
Take Root: Red State Reproductive Justice has moved to Kentucky and the conference is scheduled to take place in November 2020. Please join us for a panel at the University of Kentucky's Year of Equity programming to hear organizers, activists, and healthcare providers from national organizations in red states discuss challenges, approaches, and perspectives in advancing reproductive justice.
Alicia Beltran, a 28-year-old pregnant woman, sought early prenatal care and confided in health care workers about prior use of painkillers and her efforts to end that use on her own. Instead of commending Ms. Beltran for her progress, her medical practitioners reported her to the Department of Human Services, as a result of which she was arrested on July 18, 2013 by Wisconsin law enforcement officials.
Dear Friends and Allies,
As many of you know, on June 26, a grand jury in Alabama indicted Marshae Jones for the crime of manslaughter because she experienced a pregnancy loss that she allegedly caused by being unable to protect herself from being shot in the stomach while 5 months pregnant.
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.
NAPW Senior Staff Attorney Amber Khan authored "The Crime Was Pregnancy," published in the Summer 2019 issue of Ms. Magazine. This important piece provides an update to Janet Gallagher's Ms. Magazine article "The Fetus and the Law -- Whose Life Is It Anyway," published over 35 years ago.
