Pregnancy Justice Webinar: Race, Pregnancy, and the Opioid Epidemic: White Privilege and the Criminalization of Opioid Use During Pregnancy

In Pregnancy Justice's study, Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973-2005: Implications for Women's Legal Status and Public Health,, Jeanne Flavin and Lynn M. Paltrow documented the fact that an overwhelming and disproportionate number of arrests and detentions were brought against women of color and especially low-income Black women. Such women were targeted because of their race, pregnancy, and drug use - most often cocaine. Since 2005, and with attention shifting to the use of opioids, the majority of women arrested in relationship to their pregnancies have been white and consistent with their proportion of the overall population. Pregnancy Justice was honored to have Professor Khiara M. Bridges join us in a webinar that examined this shift, why it has happened, and what we can learn about white privilege from this shift.

On May 7, Lynn M. Paltrow and Professor Khiara M. Bridges discussed Professor Bridges's latest article published in the Harvard Law Review: Race, Pregnancy, and the Opioid Epidemic: White Privilege and the Criminalization of Opioid Use During Pregnancy. You can view the recorded webinar here