Lynn Paltrow

Lynn M. Paltrow, J.D., is the founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). Ms. Paltrow is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law. She has worked on numerous cases challenging restrictions on the right to choose abortion as well cases opposing the prosecution and punishment of pregnant women seeking to continue their pregnancies to term. Ms. Paltrow has served as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, as Director of Special Litigation at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and as Vice President for Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of New York City. Ms. Paltrow conceived of and filed the first affirmative federal civil rights challenge to a hospital policy of searching pregnant women for evidence of drug use and turning that information over to the police. In the case of Ferguson et. al., v. City of Charleston et. al., the United States Supreme Court agreed that such a policy violates the 4th amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Through her work as a national litigator and strategist in cases involving the intersection of the war on reproductive freedom and the war on drugs, Ms. Paltrow recognized the need for a shift in the reproductive rights paradigm – away from divisive (and inaccurate) “pro-choice” and “anti-choice” categorizations and toward a set of inclusive, positive reproductive and family justice values around which a broad base of allies can mobilize. As Executive Director of NAPW, Ms. Paltrow combines legal advocacy with grassroots and national organizing and policy work to bring about this shift. She is a frequent guest lecturer and writer for popular press, law reviews and medical journals and is the recipient of the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellowship, the Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship, the Justice Gerald Le Dain Award for Achievement in the Field of Law, and was selected in 2005 as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s Enews.

 

Rape, Forced Pregnancy, Personhood, and Crimes Against Humanity

Lynn Paltrow

The real question that needs to be addressed is not whether rape can cause pregnancy. The question is: will measures that ban women who have been impregnated by rape from having abortions be enacted, enabling rapists, with state support, even greater power to deprive women of their dignity and personhood?

Prosecutors, Judges Increasingly Indict Pregnant Women Using “Personhood” Status Rejected By Voters

Lynn Paltrow

Citizens in Mississippi, once, and Colorado, twice, have resoundingly rejected so called "personhood" measures that would have established the "pre-born" as separate legal persons under the law. There is increasing evidence that when people understand the broad reach of such measures, they vote them down. But what happens when prosecutors and judges misuse their power and "pass" such measures in disguise?

Is Locking Up Pregnant Women the New Cure for State Financial Woes and Mental Health Problems?

Lynn Paltrow

Lawmakers in Alabama and Indiana are moving to arrest and incarcerate pregnant women with mental illness and drug addiction, and charge them with harming their fetus.  National Advocates for Pregnant Women is working to defend the basic rights of pregnant women suffering from mental illness, severe depression, or any other health problem to be treated like other human beings experiencing the same problems.

The War on Drugs Coming to a Womb Near You

Lynn Paltrow

Organizations from the March of Dimes to the American Medical Association oppose the arrests and prosecutions, based on "child abuse," of pregnant women who use drugs, but South Carolina continues to jail pregnant women and mothers otherwise denied treatment.