Category Archives: Uncategorized

4th Annual Take Root – Reproductive Justice Conference – February 21-22, 2014

4th Annual Take Root – Reproductive Justice Conference

We hope you will join us this year at the 4th Annual Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice Conference. Registration is now open for this year’s conference that will be held in Norman, OK on February 21-22.

Surprised that such a conference is taking place in Oklahoma? Don’t be.

Potential activists in the “red” areas of the country have largely been written off as too conservative, too ideologically homogenous, and too geographically and culturally isolated to contribute to a nationwide and transnational reproductive justice movement. Rather than encourage and support people who stay and fight, popular media and people on the coasts often suggest that the best alternative for “red” state activists is to move to more progressive parts of the country. Continue reading →

The Anonymous People – screening January 14, 2014 in Larkspur, CA

I’d like to inform you of a feature documentary film titled THE ANONYMOUS PEOPLE that will be playing one day only at the Lark Theater in Larkspur, Ca. on Tuesday, January 14 at 7:30pm. There will be a discussion after the film with people in the community including Sheila Ganz, filmmaker of On Life’s Terms: Mothers in Recovery.

Anonymous People deals with over 23 million people living in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Deeply entrenched social stigma has kept recovery voices quiet and faces hidden for decades. What we see is mass media depiction of people with addiction that show the dysfunctional side of what is a preventable and treatable health condition. Just like women with breast cancer, or people with HIV/AIDS, a grass roots movement is emerging. Courageous addiction recovery advocates have come out of the shadows and are organizing to end discrimination and move toward recovery based solutions. They are questioning the approach the U.S. has taken with addiction: criminalizing a health condition, marginalizing those impacted, and giving superficial treatment to the chronic illness of addiction. This has resulted in an annual cost of over $350 billion, lost lives, disrupted families and communities. Continue reading →

New York Appeals Court Affirms the Rights of Pregnant Women‏

NEW YORK APPEALS COURT AFFIRMS THE RIGHTS OF PREGNANT WOMEN
New York (November 14, 2013): Today, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, rejected a lower Family Court’s finding that a woman’s decision to move from California to New York while pregnant was so “reprehensible” that it could bar New York courts from hearing her child custody case. National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the NYU School of Law Reproductive Justice Clinic, who filed an amicus brief with other women’s rights and advocacy organizations, applaud today’s judgment.In May, the lower Family Court found that petitioner Sara McK’s relocation during her pregnancy — to attend Columbia University on the GI Bill — was tantamount to “appropriation of the child while in utero.” On the basis of that characterization, the New York Family Court referee departed from the statute that controls which state is supposed to hear custody proceedings. The statute makes clear that, typically, custody issues should be resolved in the child’s “home state” — in this case, New York, where the child was born.

“The referee’s decision had far-reaching implications for pregnant women, effectively stripping them of fundamental constitutional rights,” said Sarah Burns, Professor of Clinical Law at NYU Law and Director of the Reproductive Justice Clinic. Burns and her clinical students, joined by NAPW, the NYCLU, and nine other organizations, filed a brief in the case detailing how the referee’s interpretation of the relevant statute placed unconstitutional constraints on a woman’s basic life decisions, such as where she lives, works, and attends school while pregnant. Continue reading →

Update on Bei Bei Shuai – Good News

After two and a half years, Bei Bei Shuai – an Indiana woman who was charged with feticide and murder for attempting suicide – is finally free: free from a looming murder trial, free from the electronic GPS shackle that has tracked her every move since her release on bail from the Marion County Jail, and free from an unjust and legally unauthorized prosecution. Continue reading →

Bei Bei Shuai speaks at rally

by Yvonne Man

beibei shuai

April 6, 2013, Supports held signs and cheered on Saturday afternoon, in support of Bei Bei Shuai.  The 36-year-old made her first public appearance, since being charged with murder and attempted feticide two years ago.  “It’s been really tough because you know, because I have some downs and having a really difficult time,” Shuai begins. “I do have to be under these criminal charges and I still have a lot of grieving.”

Shuai’s attonry, Linda Pence believes the charges against her client are on a slippery slope. “All this case has done is made suicide a crime for only pregnant women,” says Pence. Continue reading →

Experts Challenge Findings in FL Task Force Report on Rx Drug Abuse & Newborns‏

April 4, 2013, New York and Maryland, April 3, 2013 – Today, four leading experts in law, medicine, and addiction treatment, Robert G. Newman, MD, MPH, Lynn M. Paltrow, JD, Sharon Stancliff, MD, FAAFP and Mishka Terplan, MD, MPH, FACOG, Diplomate, ABAM, released to Task Force members and the public their analysis of the Final Report issued by the Florida Statewide Task Force on Prescription Drug Abuse and Newborns, urging Florida to give greater attention to existing well-established medical protocols and to address the needs of pregnant women, including the need for greater access to Medication Assistance Treatment and health services that are not linked to punitive criminal justice and unnecessary child welfare interventions. Continue reading →

April 6, 2013: Rally For Bei Bei Shuai and Against the New Jane Crow‏

Posted for National Advocates for Pregnant Women:

Indianapolis-based student, social justice, and faith-based activists are planning a rally in support of Bei Bei Shuai and against separate and unequal laws for pregnant women. The Rally will take place on April 6 at 2pm in front of the City Market (222 E. Market Street) in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Please join us there!

More than two years ago Bei Bei Shuai was pregnant and, in an act of desperation, sought to kill herself. Friends intervened and got her to a hospital in time. She survived and did everything she could to ensure that her baby would too, including undergoing emergency cesarean surgery. The baby was born alive, but tragically did not survive. Continue reading →

Depressed, Pregnant Women Receive Inconsistent Treatment, Have Longer Hospital Stays

Science News
Depressed, Pregnant Women Receive Inconsistent Treatment, Have Longer Hospital Stays
ScienceDaily (June 16, 2011) — Pregnant women who screen positive for depression are unlikely to receive consistent treatment, researchers say. That may translate to women spending more time in the hospital before babies are even born. Continue reading →

Newly Born and Stigmatized: NYT Fail on Pregnant Women and Drug Use

Newly Born and Stigmatized: NYT Fail on Pregnant Women and Drug Use
By Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW)
April 11, 2011 – 9:36pm
Like the early stories in the New York Times about prenatal exposure to cocaine, the recent New York Times story, Newly Born, and Withdrawing from Pain Killers relies on anecdote and innuendo to focus attention on pregnant drug users rather than actual facts, lessons learned, or the real economic and ethical issues that need to be addressed.
One paragraph leads with this alarming characterization: “As prescription drug abuse ravages communities across the country. . . .” When prescription drug use turns into dependency and addiction it can be extremely damaging to the individual and those around them. This piece, however, does not offer one shred of evidence connecting pregnant women’s drug use to community destruction or decay. Continue reading →

Screening at the Adoption: Secret Histories, Public Policies Conference

I recently screened the 79 minute rough cut of Moms Living Clean at the Adoption: Secret Histories, Public Policies Conference at MIT in Cambridge, MA. I was honored to be the first presenter of the conference and a day of documentary films. One might think, what is the link between mothers with addictions and adoption, but a closer look will show that adoption and foster care may be the experience for children of mothers with substance abuse issues, if they cannot stay in recovery, learn parenting skills and become self-sufficient.

Continue reading →