As a staff attorney with the Reproductive Freedom Project since 2002, Ms. Kasdan has litigated a number of issues, including advocating to protect the health and rights of pregnant women who are incarcerated or facing criminal prosecutions. She successfully led the Project’s class-action challenge to the Missouri Department of Correction’s policy prohibiting pregnant inmates from obtaining abortions; she was a member of the Project’s trial team in the challenge to the federal abortion ban; and she was a critical part of the Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood legal team in the U.S. Supreme Court. She has also drafted friend-of-the-court briefs in a variety of cases, including one in support of New York’s contraceptive equity law, which was upheld by the highest court of New York. Ms. Kasdan received her B.A. from Washington University in 1995. In 2001, she graduated magna cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow. Before joining the Project, Ms. Kasdan served as a law clerk for Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Last week a federal Court of Appeals held for the first time that the Constitution protects pregnant women in prison from unnecessary and unsafe shackling during labor and childbirth. Our video answers FAQs on shackling.
