Based on misinformation that frequently appears in the media, many people believe that pregnant people who use any amount of a criminalized drug or alcohol will inevitably harm or even kill their fetus. But media hype is not the same as science, and popular news reports have misrepresented the facts about prenatal exposure to drugs.
We submitted written testimony at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of their July, 2022 hearing, "A Post-Roe America: The Legal Consequences of the Dobbs Decision." Our testimony covers the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
For decades, pregnant people across America have been subjected to criminalization and deprivations of liberty on the basis of pregnancy or pregnancy outcomes. Women have been targeted by police and prosecutors, healthcare providers, child welfare workers, and judges who have sought to deprive them of their constitutional rights in the name of "fetal personhood.
June 23, 2022
As we await the anticipated fall of Roe and the subsequent loss of the constitutionally protected right to abortion, National Advocates for Pregnant Women today launched a first-of-its-kind, multidisciplinary guide to arm professionals with the tools and resources to reject the criminalization of pregnant people and their pregnancy outcomes — Confronting Pregnancy Criminalization: A Practical Guide for Healthcare Providers, Lawyers, Medical Examiners, Child Welfare Workers, and Policymakers.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women today released the groundbreaking report Harming Fathers: How the Family Court System Forces Men to Regulate Pregnancy , which analyzes and documents dozens of cases from around the country in which men have been labeled as abusive or neglectful — even losing access to their children — for failing to control the behavior of the women during their pregnancies.
NAPW's groundbreaking report Harming Fathers: How the Family Court System Forces Men to Regulate Pregnancy analyzes and documents dozens of cases across the country in which men have been labeled as abusive or neglectful — even losing access to their children — for failing to control the behavior of women during their pregnancies.
People parent. People use drugs. People parent and use drugs. Despite how common this is, parenting and drug use is highly stigmatized, rarely talked about, and punishable by the state within both the criminal and family legal systems. But, we know that not all parents are faced with family separation and criminalization.
Emily Akers of Oklahoma experienced a pregnancy loss at 20 weeks and was charged with manslaughter based on the theory that methamphetamine use caused the stillbirth. This brief, filed by attorney John Coyle on behalf of local and national medical experts, underscores that there is no evidence-based research to support the prosecution’s theory that methamphetamine causes stillbirths.
Note: this bill failed in committee. A Louisiana abortion ban containing language that would have allowed pregnant women to be charged with homicide in relation to their own pregnancy outcomes, including abortion, is expected to be amended to remove such language after opposition from House Republicans and the state's governor.
This fact sheet provides background information about Wisconsin’s Act 292, colloquially known as the “Unborn Child Protection Act” or the “Cocaine Mom Law.” We call it Act 292 because the Act harms both children and fetuses—it does not protect them—and the previously-used term “cocaine mom” elicits a false, slanderous, and racist trope about people who consumed cocaine during pregnancy, which we reject.
