Dear Friends and Allies,
Last week, two monumental things happened: the Supreme Court agreed to hear another abortion case and NAPW celebrated a legal victory for our client, Chelsea Becker, whose murder charge for experiencing a stillbirth was dismissed.
Download PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS - Case of Chelsea Becker
Chelsea Becker Should Not Spend One More Day in Jail
On November 5, 2019, Chelsea Becker was arrested and charged with murder under California Penal Code §187. Ms. Becker had experienced a stillbirth that the prosecutor claims (without scientific basis) was caused by her methamphetamine use during pregnancy.
On August 1, 2019, a prosecutor in Chattanooga, TN appeared in court and dropped all charges against Tiffany Roberts.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women and a coalition of Tennessee and national advocates and experts spoke out quickly and forcefully against the arrest and charges brought against Tiffany Roberts on July 23 in Chattanooga.
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.
Oklahoma District Attorney Craig Ladd publicly announced [in December 2017] that he is calling for the increased prosecution of women who are pregnant and alleged to have used controlled substances, despite his knowledge that such prosecutions are not legally supported.
NAPW, along with 11 other organizations and 27 individual experts, submitted an Open Letter to the Madison County, Indiana prosecutor, asking him to drop felony charges against a woman who experienced a stillbirth at home. An Indiana woman who experienced a pregnancy loss is being prosecuted for feticide and involuntary manslaughter, based on her alleged drug use while pregnant.
NAPW is in the Ohio Supreme Court supporting a young woman charged with homicide after experiencing a stillbirth. For now, the issue is whether her confidential statements to her doctors while she was pregnant can be admitted into evidence against her at trial.
NAPW, along with 11 other organizations and 27 individual experts, submitted an Open Letter to the Madison County, Indiana prosecutor, asking him to drop felony charges against a woman who experienced a stillbirth at home. An Indiana woman who experienced a pregnancy loss is being prosecuted for feticide and involuntary manslaughter, based on her alleged drug use while pregnant.
March 14, 2018
The Arkansas Court of Appeals has issued a unanimous ruling reversing Anne Bynum’s conviction for “concealing a birth” that resulted in a sentence of six years in prison. The criminal charge and conviction stemmed from the state’s claims about Ms. Bynum’s actions after she experienced a stillbirth at home in 2015. The three-judge panel found that the trial court in Drew County had abused its discretion by allowing the jury to consider evidence about Ms. Bynum’s past pregnancies and outcomes including abortion, that “clearly prejudiced” the verdict in the case.
