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.
Watch the webinar recording on our YouTube channel.
Pregnancy Justice, JMacForFamilies, Drug Policy Alliance, The Bronx Defenders, and The University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work convened to discuss the role social workers play in the oppression, criminalization, and surveillance of pregnant and postpartum people within the criminal and family policing (commonly known as child welfare) systems.
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.
Contact Northwell Health and ask them to resolve Rinat Dray’s case and to take steps to ensure pregnant patients are never again forced to undergo medical procedures without consent.
Background:
Rinat Dray was pregnant with her third child in 2011, and after two cesarean surgeries, she was committed to finding a provider who would be open to the possibility of, and respect her desire for, a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC). She chose Northwell Health’s Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH). Despite advertising itself as a VBAC-friendly hospital, Ms. Dray’s birth experience at SIUH was even worse than her previous ones.
Experts Address the Rights of Pregnant Patients to Informed Consent, Bodily Integrity, and Medical Decision Making
What happens when a pregnant patient exercises their right to medical decision making? Is there any justification to override a pregnant patient’s consent? Join Pregnancy Justice for a discussion featuring leaders in bioethics, medicine, law and birth justice about pregnant patients' rights to informed consent, bodily integrity, and medical decision making and the trauma that forced medical interventions can inflict on pregnant people.
Drug use and pregnancy are sensitive subjects that are often addressed without the opportunity to hear from experts. Please view our webinar featuring medical experts who discuss evidence-based research on drug use, addiction, and pregnancy. In addition, local legal and community advocates offer insight into the current responses to drug use and pregnancy in the Central Valley and approaches that will advance maternal, fetal, and child health.
Register Here!
Join Indra Lusero (Staff Attorney) and Kendall Bentsen (Organizer) from Pregnancy Justice, as they discuss the civil and human rights you have in the hospital during childbirth as well as the limitations of those rights in practice. This webinar will include an extensive Q&A session as well as an interactive quiz that will take you through the twists and turns of a birth experience in a hospital and test if you know your own birth rights.
Northwell Health's Staten Island University Hospital internal policy ("Managing Maternal Refusal") gives doctors the authority to take control of pregnant patients and force them to have medical procedures without their consent. This policy violates medical ethics and New York's Patient Bill of Rights.
Some New Yorkers think that attacks on reproductive rights and health are confined to far-away places such as Alabama and Tennessee. But right here in New York City, a hospital is arguing and courts are so far accepting the idea that there is a point in pregnancy when patients lose their rights to bodily integrity and medical decision-making.
Panel discussion about the rights of pregnant employees and patients.
Join legal and reproductive health experts to learn about the employment rights of pregnant folks and their decision-making rights regarding their health care and birth plan.
Panelists include:
Chanel Porchia-Albert, CD, CPD, CLC, CHHC, Founder and Executive Director of Ancient Song Doula Services
Allegra Fishel, JD, Founder and Executive Director, Gender Equality Law Center
Indra Lusero, JD, Staff Attorney at Pregnancy Justice
Co-sponsored by the NYU Law Reproductive Justice Clinic
Bios
Allegra Fishel, JD
Allegra L. Fishel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Gender Equality Law Center.
