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.
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.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) and Birth Rights Bar Association (BRBA) are hosting a monthly webinar series featuring topics related to birth justice, reproductive justice, maternal health, and the law. During Black Maternal Health Week in April 2019, BRBA and NAPW co-sponsored a webinar entitled: “Racism, Obstetric Violence and Black Women’s Bodies”, with panelists Aarin Williams (Senior Staff Attorney at NAPW), Colleen Campbell, JD, Chinyere Oparah, PhD, and Oneika Bogle, that discussed the various ways Black women experience force and coercion related to pregnancy and childbirth.
NAPW Senior Staff Attorney Aarin Williams was featured on the 5/19/19 episode of CNN’s “United Shades of America” hosted by W. Kamau Bell. This episode, “Body Politics”, focused on reproductive rights and justice in Jackson, Mississippi, and Aarin grounded the episode in a discussion of intersectionality, reproductive justice, and maternal health.
Anti-abortion measures infringe on the constitutional rights and the personhood of all women. Anti-abortion ideology is used to justify forced medical interventions on pregnant women and arrests and detentions of pregnant women who have experienced pregnancy losses, disagreed with doctor’s advice, or had or attempted to have an abortion.
Dear Friends and Allies,
Our New Year was off to a rousing start with the publication of the New York Times editorial series, "A Woman's Rights." It brought attention to NAPW cases, clients, and framing, and helped push New York's legislators to pass the Reproductive Health Act (RHA). Below please find updates about the RHA, NAPW's staff, work, and how you can help.
The New York Times Series " A Woman's Rights"
March 11, 2019
The New York Times Editorial Board published the groundbreaking series "A Woman's Rights" on December 28, 2018. Please find the entire series here.
You can read each part of the series and download individual PDFs below:
Download Intro: A Woman's Rights
Download Part 1: When Prosecutors Jail a Mother for a Miscarriage
Download Part 2: The Feticide Playbook, Explained
Download Part 3: The Cost of Complacency About Roe
Download Part 4: Slandering the Unborn
Download Part 5: The Mothers Society Condemns
Download Part 6: Can a Corpse Give Birth?
Download Part 7: How My Stillbirth Became a Crime
Download Part 8: The Future of Personhood Nation
