Model and Strategy
Addiction and recovery are subjects that belong in the realms of science and public health, not the criminal law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) will help ensure that everyone, including pregnant women, has access to evidence-based drug treatment and can seek help without fear of arrest, detention, forced medical interventions, or family separation.
NAPW knows that efforts to de-stigmatize drug use and to shift policies from costly punishment to cost-effective treatment will fail if policy and laws based on myths about the impact of drug use on pregnant women, children, and families are left unchallenged. NAPW will build knowledge, understanding and activism that counters medical misinformation about pregnant women and drug use. We will win cases that prevent prosecutors, courts, and policymakers from criminalizing addiction, from prohibiting people from obtaining methadone treatment, or forcing them to submit to treatment they do not want. In the midst of an overdose crisis and a current failure of public policy, we do not want history to repeat itself and allow claims of saving “unborn lives” to distract attention from the failure to save actual lives from an epidemic of overdose and failed drug policy.
Impact
NAPW’s impact, if successful, will protect people from arrest, detention, and forced medical interventions because they have or are perceived to have drug dependency problems, especially if they are pregnant and parenting women with such problems. We will decrease the misuse of judicial and prosecutorial power to prevent people from obtaining effective forms of treatment, including medications such as methadone and buprenorphine. We will have played an influential role in increasing understanding of and support for health care, including evidence-based drug treatment guided by harm reduction (compassionate, public health) principles. Our work with allies and experts will have stopped or at least reduced the extent to which child welfare interventions are based on drug war propaganda, medical misinformation, and racial profiling. We will have stopped weaponization of issues relating to pregnant women and drug use as mechanisms for undermining progress toward drug policy reform. NAPW will have expanded support for non-punitive, harm reduction treatment and recovery approaches among reproductive rights, health, and justice advocates and activists. And, we will have helped to shift the focus from individual “responsibility” to an understanding of social determinants as the most important factors influencing both drug dependency problems and pregnancy outcomes. We will also increase the number of organizations, experts and people directly impacted speaking out against punitive approaches and instead supporting principles and practices that protect patient confidentiality and promote respect and compassion for everyone, including pregnant women who struggle with addiction problems.
Leadership
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Lynn Paltrow
Executive Director