Can a woman be jailed for a miscarriage?

Does a fetus have the same rights as a person? That’s at the heart of new laws that are resulting in the prosecution of pregnant women and women who have miscarriages. According to a remarkable 8-part editorial series in the New York Times, “Women who fell down the stairswho ate a poppy seed bagel and failed a drug test or who took legal drugs during pregnancy — drugs prescribed by their doctors — all have been accused of endangering their children… Such cases illuminate a deep shift in American society…toward the embrace of a relatively new concept: that a fetus in the womb has the same rights as a fully formed person.” Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, discusses the national landscape of laws that she argues are aimed at restricting and eliminating women’s rights. (February 27, 2017 broadcast)

Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director, National Advocates for Pregnant Women