Category: Pregnancy

Climate Change and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Africa: The Urgent Need for Intersectional Approaches in Climate Change Policy and Governance

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Photo credit: @wambuigichobi | SMA

A Masai woman raises her fist as other women leaders look on at COP 27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt during one of the debriefs by the Women and Gender Constituency. 

by Faith Lumonya, Esther Wambui, and Eunice Musiime

As global temperatures rise and the frequency of extreme weather events — such as floods, droughts, and heat waves — increases, climate change poses a growing threat to the progress of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Women face intersecting forms of vulnerability depending on their lived realities and experiences. For example, climate change reduces access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, increases rates of sexual risk behavior, and leads to earlier sexual debut, higher prevalence of infectious diseases, and gender based sexual abuse and exploitation — however, these realities are not taken into account in climate change policy and governance.

Climate-related disasters frequently disrupt health care services, limiting women’s access to essential SRH care such as contraceptives and maternal health services. Associated economic and infrastructural damage further hamper access to vital health resources, while the increased instability exacerbates risks of gender-based violence and reproductive health challenges, especially for vulnerable women and girls. Given these compounded risks, it is crucial to integrate SRHR into broader global and national climate adaptation efforts. 

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When AI Turns Miscarriage into Murder: The Alarming Criminalization of Pregnancy in the Digital Age

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

by Abeer Malik

Imagine: Overjoyed at your pregnancy, you eagerly track every milestone, logging daily habits and symptoms into a pregnancy app. Then tragedy strikes—a miscarriage. Amidst your grief, authorities knock at your door. They’ve been monitoring your digital data and now question your behavior during pregnancy, possibly building a case against you using your own information as evidence.

This dystopian scenario edges closer to reality as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more embedded in reproductive health care. In a post-Dobbs world where strict fetal personhood laws are gaining traction, AI’s predictive insight into miscarriage or stillbirth are at risk of becoming tools of surveillance, casting suspicion on women who suffer natural pregnancy losses.

The criminalization of pregnancy outcomes is not new, but AI introduces a high-tech dimension to an already chilling trend. At stake is the privacy and the fundamental right of women to make decisions about their own bodies without fearing criminal prosecution. Alarmingly, the law is woefully unprepared for this technological intrusion.

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Evidence and Authority in Abortion Law

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

by Rachel Rebouché

Two years after deciding the case that overturned a constitutional right to abortion, the Supreme Court heard two cases on abortion law this term. The first involved a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval and regulation of mifepristone, the first drug in a medication abortion. The second concerned the intersection of Idaho’s state abortion ban, which has no exceptions for medical emergencies, and the application of the federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires that emergency departments stabilize patients needing emergency care in Medicare-funded hospitals.

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figurine with a void shape of a child and family of parents with a child. Surrogacy concept.

Regulating International Commercial Surrogacy

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By Hannah Rahim

In January 2024, Pope Francis called for a universal ban on surrogacy as a threat to global peace and human dignity, claiming that the practice is a “grave violation” of the mother and child’s dignity and based on the “exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.” Surrogacy raises complex ethical and legal issues, particularly in cases of international surrogacy, where people seek surrogacy services from another country. There is currently no regulation of international surrogacy. Creating such regulation is important to allow appropriate access to surrogacy services while mitigating its harmful consequences.

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cell with pipette and needle.

Are Embryos Children? The Alabama Supreme Court Says Yes

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By Joelle Boxer

This month, the Alabama Supreme Court held that the term “children” in a state statute includes embryos, or “extrauterine children.”

As fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF) involve the creation of multiple embryos, not all of which are implanted, the implications of this ruling could be far-reaching. Four million births each year in the U.S. are via IVF, an important pathway to parenthood for couples with infertility, LGBTQ couples, and single parents.

This article will examine the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic and its consequences for Americans building their families through fertility services.

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Birmingham, Alabama - February 8, 2020: University of Alabama at Birmingham UAB Hospital title and logo on brick facade.

The Beginning of a Bad TRIP – Alabama’s Embryonic Personhood Decision and Targeted Restrictions on IVF Provision

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By Katherine L. Kraschel

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court called frozen embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) “extrauterine children” and referred to the cryotanks where they are stored as  “cryogenic nurser(ies).” The Court sided with couples who claim the accidental destruction of frozen embryos created through IVF and cryopreserved ought to be treated equally to the death of a child. 

The case, LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, involves plaintiffs seeking punitive damages from an Alabama fertility clinic for the “wrongful death” of their embryos that were destroyed when a patient in the hospital where they were stored removed them from the cryotank. While the lower Alabama Courts concluded that the cryopreserved embryos were not a person or child under the state’s law, the Alabama Supreme Court disagreed and held that the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” and that the  plaintiff’s wrongful death claims could proceed. 

Thoughtful scholars have argued that existing state laws do not sufficiently redress mistakes and accidents that occur in the process of fertility care, pregnancy, and birth. However, the ends do not justify the means in this case; likening frozen embryos to children is not a legally sound mechanism to hold fertility clinics accountable for negligently storing embryos. It illustrates how sympathetic stories can be used to further the agendas of those who seek to equate embryos and fetuses  to “people” under the law and undercut the critical role modern fertility care plays in (re)defining the bonds that create families, and particularly, many LGBTQ+ and single parent families. 

Specifically, lawmaking in fertility care stands to fuel the movement to create fetal personhood rights and a federal abortion ban. It may also signify an inflection point in regulating assisted reproduction reminiscent of pre-Dobbs targeted restrictions on abortion provider (TRAP) laws that sought to limit abortion provision by imposing restrictions. TRAP laws’ new sibling – targeted restrictions on IVF Provision – or TRIP laws, as I call them, stand to rob patients of their ability to build their families by compelling physicians to provide less effective, more expensive care. TRIP laws will erect barriers and exacerbate long standing racial disparities in accessing fertility care, and they will disproportionately impact members of the LGBTQ+ community who wish to build families through fertility treatments.  The Alabama decision is severe, but it should serve as a warning to state legislators with a new responsibility to safeguard reproductive health care without the floor of Roe’s protections – proceed with extreme care and regard for “unintended” consequences of regulating fertility care.  Read More

. Group of pregnant women and women with children. Vector illustration

#MaternalHealthAwarenessDay: Three Policies to Push

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By Joelle Boxer

Today is Maternal Health Awareness Day, focused on the theme “Access in Crisis.”

“Crisis” is the right word, yet still an understatement. In the U.S., for every 100,000 live births in 2021, nearly 33 pregnant people lost their lives. In Norway, that number was 2. Black and Native American women in the U.S. are particularly at risk, with death rates 2-3 times higher than those of white women, due to structural racism.

What can the law do to prevent these deaths? Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the U.S., covering 64% of Black mothers and 66% of Native American mothers. Examining efforts at the federal and state level, I highlight three options, leveraging Medicaid as a policy lever.

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Rows of gold post office boxes with one open mail box.

Plan to See ‘Plan C’ This Year

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By Joelle Boxer

Tracy Droz Tragos’ new documentary, “Plan C,” follows the work of a grassroots organization dedicated to improving access to the abortion pill by mail in the U.S., while navigating an increasingly restrictive legal landscape.

There is no better time to hear the perspectives of these patients, providers, and activists. Just last month, the U.S. Supreme Court took on a case to determine the legal status of the pill, also called mifepristone. With a decision expected in June 2024, Tragos’ film shows us what’s at stake.

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