Statements

On behalf of Pregnancy Justice, staff attorney Emma Roth, submitted a comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to a proposed rule to strengthen reproductive health care privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Drawing on Pregnancy Justice's work for over twenty years on cases where the state has intervened in the medical decision making of a pregnant person or the prosecution of them or their family on the basis of perceived risk of fetal harm, the comment recognizes that the proposed rule is an important step in the right direction for safeguarding reproductive health care privacy.

Pregnancy Justice, in coalition with other reproductive justice organizations and allies, submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to a proposed rule to strengthen reproductive health care privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The comments recognize that the proposed rule is an important step in the right direction for safeguarding reproductive health care information.

For immediate release
Contact: media@pregnancyjusticeus.org

NEW YORK — Today, founder Lynn Paltrow announced that she will be stepping down from the Executive Director role at Pregnancy Justice (formerly National Advocates for Pregnant Women) at the end of her sabbatical in May 2023.

She is working with the board and the staff to ensure a smooth transition, one that will occur with the benefit of Acting Executive Director Dana Sussman's leadership.

June 23, 2022

As we await the anticipated fall of Roe and the subsequent loss of the constitutionally protected right to abortion, Pregnancy Justice 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.

Pregnancy Justice 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 9, 2022.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Mary McNamara of Swanson & McNamara LLP, Mary@smllp.law; Pregnancy Justice, media@advocatesforpregnantwomen.org; and ACLU of Northern California, press@aclunc.org

After four years in prison, Adora Perez's murder charge for experiencing a stillbirth has been dropped.

On March 18, 2022, a judge in Kings County, California reversed Adora Perez's guilty plea and vacated her 11-year sentence, sending the case back to the trial court for new proceedings. In 2018, Adora Perez, poorly advised by her court-appointed counsel, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter of her fetus, a crime that doesn't exist in California.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 23, 2022

On February 22, 2022, the District Attorney in Lauderdale County, AL dropped an unprecedented felony charge for Unlawful Possession or Receipt of Controlled Substances (“Unlawful Possession”) against Kimberly Blalock, a mother of six.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 3, 2022

CHICAGO – On January 28, 2022, Pregnancy Justice and the ACLU of Illinois filed a charge of discrimination against Saint Alexius hospital with the Illinois Department of Human Rights for a discriminatory, non-consensual drug test of a first-time mother, Ms. F., before she went into labor.

Remarks by Samantha Lee, Staff Attorney, as part of Attorney General Rob Bonta's press conference on 1/6/2022.

Thank you, Attorney General Bonta. My name is Samantha Lee and I am a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice.

As an organization dedicated to advancing the civil and human rights of all people capable of pregnancy, Pregnancy Justice is honored to stand with Attorney General Bonta in support of this legal alert instructing district attorneys, police chiefs, and county sheriffs in California not to misuse the state’s murder statute to criminalize people for their pregnancy outcomes.