Pregnancy Justice at American Bar Association’s National Conference on Parent Representation

Pregnancy Justice Senior Staff Attorney Amber Khan and Director of Legal Advocacy Nancy Rosenbloom attended and spoke at this year’s American Bar Association National Conference on Parent Representation in Washington, D.C. in April 2019. This conference “is designed for advocates who focus on parent advocacy in the child welfare system”, including many parent defense attorneys from around the country.

At this year’s conference, Amber Khan was a panelist/moderator for the well-attended “Pregnancy, Substance Use & The Child Welfare System” workshop, with co-panelists Dr. Mishka Terplan and Professor David Cohen. This panel discussed how drug policies are used to expand child welfare investigations and “child abuse” to include pregnancy and substance use, and provided parent defenders and advocates with medical expertise on prenatal substance exposure, tips for utilizing experts and constitutional arguments for parent defense, and more.

Also at the conference, Nancy Rosenbloom introduced Dr. Ron Abrahams, a strong Pregnancy Justice ally and advocate for the human rights of pregnant people who use drugs, a family physician in Vancouver, Canada, and one of the featured speakers at this year’s conference, before his Lunch Plenary titled “Perinatal Addiction and Harm Reduction—Preserving the Mother Baby Relationship in the Face of the Opioid Crisis.” Dr. Abrahams is the founding Medical Director of the Families In Recovery (FIR) Rooming-In Program in Vancouver—the first of its kind in North America.

A description of Amber Khan’s (Pregnancy Justice Senior Staff Attorney) workshop; at the 2019 American Bar Association National Conference on Parent Representation, excerpted from the conference program.