** BREAKING NEWS **
Wed. March 21, 2001
Statement of Lynn Paltrow, Esq., on Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 99-936
U.S. Supreme Court Agrees That Searching and Arresting Pregnant Women at Hospital Violates United States Constitution
Statement of Lynn Paltrow, Esq.
It is safe to say that South Carolina has imposed the most punitive policies toward pregnant drug using women of any state. On October 27, 1997, in a case called Whitner v. State, the South Carolina Supreme Court declared that viable fetuses are "children.
Punishing Women for Their Behavior During Pregnancy: An Approach That Undermines the Health of Women and Children
January 13, 2006
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For more than a decade, law enforcement personnel, judges, and elected officials nationwide have sought to punish women for their actions during pregnancy that may affect the fetuses they are carrying (Gallagher 1987). Women who are having children despite substance abuse problems have been a particular target, finding themselves pros- ecuted for such nonexistent crimes as 3fetal abuse2 and delivery of drugs through the umbilical cord.
December 11, 2003
By: Silja J.A. Talvi, The Nation magazine, December 11, 2003
Regina McKnight is doing twelve years in prison for a stillbirth, carving out a dangerous intersection between the drug war and the antichoice movement. In the eyes of the South Carolina Attorney General's office, McKnight committed murder.
May 27, 2003
MEDIA ADVISORY Contact: 917-921-7421
FOR TUESDAY, May 27th, 2003
On May 27, 2003 counsel for Regina McKnight filed a petition with U.S. Court Supreme Court requesting review of a South Carolina Supreme Court decision that effectively rewrote the state's homicide by child abuse law to permit prosecution and conviction of pregnant women who experience stillbirths.
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Throughout the late 1980's and still today, "crack moms" and "crack babies" are the subject of vigorous public debate. Much of this public discussion has been governed by speculation and medical misinformation reported as fact in both medical journals and in the popular press and has been extremely judgmental and punitive in many instances.
January 13, 1999
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By: Lynn Paltrow, 62 Albany Law Review 999 (1999)
Roe v. Wade marked only the beginning of the struggle for reproductive justice for all women. Many women fall outside of its "core" protections. Among these are drug addicted pregnant women.
January 31, 1992
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This documents the cases of an estimated 167 women who have been arrested on criminal charges because of their behavior during pregnancy or because they became pregnant while addicted to drugs. The cases are from twenty-four states.
