When Pregnancy is a Crime: Arrests, Forced Interventions in the Name of Public Health

Although this January marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, we know that there is still much work to be done to ensure reproductive justice for all women. The Guttmacher Institute reports that 2012 saw the second highest number of abortion restrictions enacted in a single year; the Center for Reproductive Justice addresses each state in this report. Among the provisions ultimately defeated were “fetal personhood” bills in Mississippi and Oklahoma. But the notion that fetuses should be protected from the women carrying them has resulted in the restriction and punishment of women across America. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and Jeanne Flavin, a professor of sociology at Fordham University and chair of NAPW’s board, have put together an extremely interesting and important study: “Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973–2005: Implications for Women’s Legal Status and Public Health.” Paltrow and Flavin (who is also the author of the 2008 book “Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America“) tried to identify and examine U.S. cases from 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade, through 2005, in which a medical or government authority tried or succeeded in stripping a woman’s autonomy because of pregnancy. The study appears in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law...
Source: Our Bodies Our Blog - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Tags: Abortion & Reproductive Rights Legal Pregnancy & Childbirth Public Policy Race & Ethnicity Research & Studies Source Type: blogs