Pregnancy Justice provides a unique and base-broadening perspective on anti-abortion legislation, including laws that seek to establish separate status for fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses. As a result, allies often ask (typically at the very last minute) for our analysis of proposed legislation that on the surface appears to impact only access to abortion or to have no impact on pregnant people at all.

Dear Friends and Allies,

As many of you know, on June 26, a grand jury in Alabama indicted Marshae Jones for the crime of manslaughter because she experienced a pregnancy loss that she allegedly caused by being unable to protect herself from being shot in the stomach while 5 months pregnant.

Today thousands of New Yorkers and others in the U.S. and from around the world are demanding that Northwell Health eliminate policies and practices that authorize forced or coerced medical interventions on pregnant patients in their facilities. Through a petition organized by Pregnancy Justice and delivered today to Northwell’s CEO and Board of Trustees, thousands of people join in calling on Northwell to ensure that no pregnant patient is again denied her constitutional and statutory rights to medical decision-making and bodily integrity as Rinat Dray was at Northwell's Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH).

Eight years after being forced to have cesarean surgery which injured her bladder, Rinat Dray has sued but has not received justice.

Update: On July 3, District Attorney Lynneice Washington did the right thing by announcing her office would not pursue any criminal charges against Ms. Jones.

On June 27, prosecutors in Alabama unsealed an indictment for manslaughter against Marshae Jones based on the claim that being pregnant and being the victim of what would ordinarily be viewed as a crime, is itself a crime.