Publications

The War on Drugs and the War on Abortion: Some Initial Thoughts on the Connections, Intersections and the Effects

Lynn Paltrow*, 28 Southern University Law Review 201 (2001).

 

 
While many people view the war on abortion and the war on drugs as distinct, there are in fact many connections and overlaps between the two. Their history, the strategies used to control and punish some reproductive choices and those to control the use of certain drugs, the limitations that exist to access to reproductive health care and drug treatment, and the populations most harmed by those limitations are remarkably similar.

Punishment and Prejudice: Judging Drug-Using Pregnant Women

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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.

Pregnant Drug Users, Fetal Persons and the Threat to Roe v. Wade

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.

Criminal Prosecutions Against Pregnant Women: National Update and Overview

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.

The Rights of Pregnant Patients: Carder Case Brings Bold Policy Initiatives

Carder Case Brings Bold Policy Initiatives

HealthSpan, Volume 8, Number 5, 1991

By Terry E. Thornton and Lynn Paltrow

When George Washington University Medical Center ("GWUMC") recently developed and adopted groundbreaking policies concerning the rights of pregnant patients to make health care decisions without court intervention, it not only reversed its position on the appropriateness of court-ordered medical care,' but resolved three years of daunting litigation against it for having subjected 27-year-old Angela Carder to a life threatening court-ordered Caesarean section in June 1987.1

Along the way, the Angela Carder case resulted in the only appellate decision in the country to address, on a fully developed legal record, a hospital's duty to its pregnant patients and the development of model hospital policies which protect the interests of both patient and institution alike.