Criminalizing pregnancy, post-Roe v. Wade #biopower

Shocking and fascinating account from Democracy Now!, who interview Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. (January 18, 2013: eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.)

"A new study shows hundreds of women in the United States have been arrested, forced to undergo unwanted medical procedures, and locked up in jails or psychiatric institutions, because they were pregnant. National Advocates for Pregnant Women found 413 cases when pregnant women were deprived of their physical liberty between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. At least 250 more interventions have taken place since then. In one case, a court ordered a critically ill woman in Washington, D.C., to undergo a C-section against her will. Neither she nor the baby survived. In another case, a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her from having an abortion."

Feministing also covered the report by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, on January 17.