Experts Address the Rights of Pregnant Patients to Informed Consent, Bodily Integrity, and Medical Decision Making

What happens when a pregnant patient exercises their right to medical decision making? Is there any justification to override a pregnant patient’s consent? Join NAPW for a discussion featuring leaders in bioethics, medicine, law and birth justice about pregnant patients' rights to informed consent, bodily integrity, and medical decision making and the trauma that forced medical interventions can inflict on pregnant people.

Dear Friends and Allies,

As the spring season offers hope of a new start, we are grateful for science, vaccines, and the possibility of reconnecting in person with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones. But as we enter this season, it is imperative that we don’t lose sight of the vast inequalities exposed during pandemic.

Today, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), with local counsel Brian White, filed a motion to dismiss an indictment against Kimberly Blalock, a mother in Lauderdale County, Alabama.

Ms. Blalock gave birth to a healthy baby on September 29, 2020. She has taken hydrocodone for approximately four years to manage chronic back pain due to the degeneration of discs in her back.

On March 9, 2021, Kings County Superior Court Judge Robert Shane Burns granted Chelsea Becker’s request to be released on her own recognizance so that she can enter a residential treatment facility, but her legal fight continues.

In 2019, Ms. Becker experienced a stillbirth, which Kings County District Attorney Keith L. Fagundes claims, without scientific basis, was caused by methamphetamine use.

On February 20, 2021, in response to a request by the Biden-Harris Administration for input on its drug policy priorities, NAPW submitted comments to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the government entity that leads and coordinates U.S. drug policy.

Dear Friends and Allies,

On January 20, many of us watched with great relief and joy as President Biden and Vice President Harris were sworn in. Amanda Gorman’s soaring poem inspired us and we joined the applause for Eugene Goodman, the Capitol Police officer who faced down members of the mob that breached the Capitol on January 6. We appreciated President Biden’s inaugural address promising that “the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer” and declaring that “we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

On December 24, 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article that included incorrect and dangerously misleading information about a recent California Supreme Court order in Chelsea Becker’s case. The article erroneously reported, “Court refuses to bar woman’s murder prosecution for death of fetus, a loss for Becerra.

This week, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), with local counsel Megan Hayes, filed an amicus brief in the Wyoming Supreme Court on behalf of thirteen experts in and advocates for maternal, infant, and child health in support of Leigha Stewart.