Publications

After the 1973 Roe decision, anti-abortion groups responded with a strategic plan to reverse the decision and recriminalize abortion through laws that seek to codify the belief that life begins at conception. Some of these criminal statutes create a new crime for causing a pregnancy loss by injuring a pregnant person, and others expand the definitions of "person" or "another" to include zygotes, embryos, and fetuses under existing criminal codes for murder, manslaughter, or related charges.

After suffering setbacks, the fetal personhood movement has gained support. The theory of a fetus as a legal person has become the framework of anti-abortion states and was highlighted in Justice Alito's majority opinion in Dobbs, creating a path for a fetal right to life argument under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

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.

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.

Pregnancy Justice'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.

Responding to multiple requests for information and guidance, Pregnancy Justice and the Birth Rights Bar Association have created a resource for people who encounter mistreatment, abuse, and human rights violations during childbirth. Unfortunately, when people experience a violation during childbirth it can be particularly hard to find legal redress for the harms they experience.

On May 31, 2019, Pregnancy Justice, along with Movement for Family Power and 20 non-governmental organizations, activists, public defense offices, academics, and others who work every day to advance the human rights of pregnant and parenting people submitted a set of recommendations to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women regarding the United States child protection and foster system.

November 15, 2018
Click here to access the full article: "The War On Drugs And The War On Abortion: Some Initial Thoughts On The Connections, Intersections And The Effects" by Lynn M. Paltrow, published in Southern University Law Review [Vol. 28.3, 2001, p. 201].

"Pregnant Drug Users, Fetal Persons, and The Threat to Roe v. Wade" by Lynn M. Paltrow
November 15, 2018
Click here to access the full article: "Pregnant Drug Users, Fetal Persons, and The Threat to Roe v. Wade" by Lynn M. Paltrow, published in Albany Law Review [Vol.