September 20, 2007
Amicus Brief in Support of the Motion to Dismiss the Information in State v. Hernandez
List of Signatories to Hernandez Public Health Amicus Brief

David Prater, Oklahoma County District Attorney
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
320 Robert S. Kerr Ste. 505
Oklahoma City, OK 73102

June 25, 2007

Dear Mr. Prater:

As medical, public health, and child welfare advocacy organizations and as physicians, health care professionals, medical ethicists, midwives, child-welfare advocates, public health advocates, researchers, and as members of the community, we are greatly concerned about the arrest and prosecution of Theresa Lee Hernandez for first degree murder based on the fact that she suffered a stillbirth at 32 weeks of pregnancy.

Source: The Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
Pubdate: June 2, 2003

S.C. Law To High Court

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review an extremely controversial South Carolina legal issue involving women who destroy their advanced pregnancy by taking addictive substances.

** BREAKING NEWS **

Wed. March 21, 2001

Statement of Lynn Paltrow, Esq., on Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 99-936

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees That Searching and Arresting Pregnant Women at Hospital Violates United States Constitution

Statement of Lynn Paltrow, Esq.

It is safe to say that South Carolina has imposed the most punitive policies toward pregnant drug using women of any state. On October 27, 1997, in a case called Whitner v. State, the South Carolina Supreme Court declared that viable fetuses are "children.

Advocates Will Continue To Fight For Regina McKnight's Release And Against Criminalizing The Behavior of Pregnant Women

DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE

For Immediate Release:
Contact: Lynn Paltrow, 212-255-9252

October 6, 2003 :
Tony Newman, 510-812-3126

Supreme Court Will Not Review Murder Conviction of Woman Who Suffered a Stillbirth South Carolina Woman Currently Serving 12 Years in Prison

Advocates Will Continue To Fight For Regina McKnight's Release And Against Criminalizing The Behavior of Pregnant Women

The U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision today not to review State of South Carolina v. Regina McKnight.

Punishing Women for Their Behavior During Pregnancy: An Approach That Undermines the Health of Women and Children
January 13, 2006

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For more than a decade, law enforcement personnel, judges, and elected officials nationwide have sought to punish women for their actions during pregnancy that may affect the fetuses they are carrying (Gallagher 1987). Women who are having children despite substance abuse problems have been a particular target, finding themselves pros- ecuted for such nonexistent crimes as 3fetal abuse2 and delivery of drugs through the umbilical cord.

December 11, 2003
By: Silja J.A. Talvi, The Nation magazine, December 11, 2003

Regina McKnight is doing twelve years in prison for a stillbirth, carving out a dangerous intersection between the drug war and the antichoice movement. In the eyes of the South Carolina Attorney General's office, McKnight committed murder.

May 27, 2003
MEDIA ADVISORY Contact: 917-921-7421
FOR TUESDAY, May 27th, 2003

On May 27, 2003 counsel for Regina McKnight filed a petition with U.S. Court Supreme Court requesting review of a South Carolina Supreme Court decision that effectively rewrote the state's homicide by child abuse law to permit prosecution and conviction of pregnant women who experience stillbirths.

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Throughout the late 1980's and still today, "crack moms" and "crack babies" are the subject of vigorous public debate. Much of this public discussion has been governed by speculation and medical misinformation reported as fact in both medical journals and in the popular press and has been extremely judgmental and punitive in many instances.