Lynn Paltrow

Lynn Paltrow
Name: Lynn Paltrow
Organization / Company: National Advocates for Pregnant Women

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'sEnews.

 

Lynn's articles

Now It's Clear: “Pro-Life” Means “Pro-Imprisonment”

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by Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women

and Emma S. Ketteringham, National Advocates for Pregnant Women

April 17, 2012 - 8:46am (Print)

Must “restoring the historic right to life accorded to unborn children” require that women, including new mothers who have given birth, go to prison?

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

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by Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women

April 5, 2012 - 9:04am (Print)

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?

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