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.
Update: On July 3, District Attorney Lynneice Washington did the right thing by announcing her office would not pursue any criminal charges against Ms. Jones.
On June 27, prosecutors in Alabama unsealed an indictment for manslaughter against Marshae Jones based on the claim that being pregnant and being the victim of what would ordinarily be viewed as a crime, is itself a crime.
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
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.
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 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.
The long and twisted prosecution of Anne Bynum has finally been resolved without a new trial and without a conviction for any crime.
In 2015, Arkansas law enforcement officials apparently believed that Anne Bynum had taken steps to have an abortion at home.
On September 20, 2018, feticide and involuntary manslaughter charges were dismissed against Kelli Driskel. In December of 2017, Ms. Driskel went to the emergency room after experiencing a stillbirth at home. An autopsy was later performed on the fetal remains and the cause of death was determined to be placental abruption with "acute methamphetamine intoxication" listed as a contributing factor.
On September, 13, 2018, prosecutors in Chesterfield County, Virginia finally dropped the criminal charge of "producing an abortion," a class 4 felony, filed against Michelle Roberts. Almost three years ago Ms. Roberts had experienced a stillbirth at home and placed the fetal remains in the ground behind her house.
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.
