Pregnancy Justice's Work

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NEW YORK — Today, Pregnancy Justice shared its first-ever annual impact report, highlighting a year of legal wins for people facing pregnancy-related criminal charges, the successful training of thousands of professionals on how to confront and reject pregnancy criminalization, the release of groundbreaking reports that moved the needle, and much more — even amid the loss of Roe.

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NEW YORK — Today, founder Lynn Paltrow announced that she will be stepping down from the Executive Director role at Pregnancy Justice (formerly National Advocates for Pregnant Women) at the end of her sabbatical in May 2023.

She is working with the board and the staff to ensure a smooth transition, one that will occur with the benefit of Acting Executive Director Dana Sussman's leadership.

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NEW YORK — Today, National Advocates for Pregnant Women announced its name change to Pregnancy Justice. The new name, along with a new look, reflects our values and longstanding fight to defend the rights of all people with the capacity for pregnancy against criminalization.

For immediate release (updated October 2022)
Contact: media@pregnancyjusticeus.org

NEW YORK — After Pregnancy Justice learned that the Etowah County, Alabama, District Attorney was imposing unconstitutional bond conditions on all pregnant women and new mothers charged with "chemical endangerment of a child" and filed habeas petitions on behalf of two clients, a new policy is now in effect that will result in fewer indefinite and unlawful detentions.

After the 1973 Roe decision, anti-abortion groups responded with a strategic plan to reverse the decision and recriminalize abortion through laws that seek to codify the belief that life begins at conception. Some of these criminal statutes create a new crime for causing a pregnancy loss by injuring a pregnant person, and others expand the definitions of "person" or "another" to include zygotes, embryos, and fetuses under existing criminal codes for murder, manslaughter, or related charges.

After suffering setbacks, the fetal personhood movement has gained support. The theory of a fetus as a legal person has become the framework of anti-abortion states and was highlighted in Justice Alito's majority opinion in Dobbs, creating a path for a fetal right to life argument under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Based on misinformation that frequently appears in the media, many people believe that pregnant people who use any amount of a criminalized drug or alcohol will inevitably harm or even kill their fetus. But media hype is not the same as science, and popular news reports have misrepresented the facts about prenatal exposure to drugs.

We submitted written testimony at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of their July, 2022 hearing, "A Post-Roe America: The Legal Consequences of the Dobbs Decision." Our testimony covers the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

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In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling eviscerating the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it is more critical than ever that health care providers safeguard patients’ right to medical privacy.