On behalf of Pregnancy Justice, we respectfully submit this written testimony in opposition to Senate Bill 216. We are a non-partisan legal advocacy organization dedicated to the welfare of pregnant people and their families. Our testimony draws on over 20 years of work on cases in which state actors intervened in a pregnant woman’s medical decision-making or punished a pregnant or postpartum woman and her family on the basis of something she may have or may not have done while pregnant.

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.

Advocates call for end to discriminatory nonconsensual drug testing of pregnant people

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 17, 2021

ORANGE COUNTY – The New York Civil Liberties Union and Pregnancy Justice filed state Division of Human Rights (DHR) complaints on behalf of Crystal H. and Jane Doe, respectively, who were drug tested without consent when giving birth at Garnet Health Medical Center in Middletown, New York.

Pregnancy Justice Executive Director Lynn M Paltrow and Consulting Policy Counsel Deborah Small present at the Meharry Medical College: Henry W. Foster OBGYN Interest Group Reproductive Justice Conference.

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Adora Perez was charged with murder in 2018 after she delivered a stillborn baby at Adventist Hospital in Hanford, California. District Attorney Keith Fagundes claimed, without scientific basis, that the stillbirth was caused by methamphetamine use. Penal Code Section 187 punishes the “unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.

Brittney Poolaw, a 20-year-old Oklahoma woman, was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree for experiencing a miscarriage at 17 weeks. She was sentenced to 4 years in state prison. Contrary to all medical science, the prosecutor blamed the miscarriage on Brittney’s alleged use of controlled substances.

On Tuesday, October 5, Brittney Poolaw, a 20-year-old Oklahoma woman, was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree for experiencing a miscarriage at 17 weeks and sentenced to 4 years in state prison.

Last year, Ms. Poolaw experienced a miscarriage and went to Comanche County Hospital for medical help.

In 2013, the Journal of Public Health Law and Policy published Pregnancy Justice's (then National Advocates for Pregnant Women) peer-reviewed study documenting arrests, detentions, and equivalent deprivations of physical liberty of women between 1973 and 2005 in which being pregnant was a necessary element of the crime or a “but for” reason for the coercive or punitive action taken.

Carefully constructed, unbiased scientific research has not found that prenatal exposure to any criminalized drugs cause specific or unique harms. While there are numerous studies reporting findings that certain substances may increase a particular risk of harm, such as lower birth weight, research has not found that any criminalized substances are abortifacients, cause miscarriages or stillbirths, or cause specific harms or impairments to the children prenatally exposed.

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