Farah Diaz-Tello is a staff attorney with National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She is a graduate of the City University of New York School of Law where she was a Haywood Burns Fellow in Civil and Human Rights, and focused on international women's human rights and reproductive justice. She is a proud Texan and aluma of the University of Texas at Austin.
The Drug War and the War on Reproductive Health aren’t just rhetorical. One woman’s tragic death shows us the true human cost of devaluing pregnant women.
Women were once seen as “second victims” of abortion. Now, as women face murder trials for unintended pregnancy losses, they’re potential fodder for a prison system that is steadily becoming one of the biggest businesses in the country.
From a tragic case in Massachusetts has emerged a rule affirming women’s fundamental personhood: “All births, regardless of venue, carry inherent risks; in the ordinary course, competent women who are pregnant may weigh these risks themselves and make decisions about the course of their own pregnancies and childbirths.”
Why is it, we wonder, that when it comes to decisions regarding women and pregnancy, science is so often ignored?
Abortion is morally defensible because women are the best arbiters of whether or not they are ready to bear a child, not because it is a way for society to prevent the births of babies perceived as undesirable.
NAPW has selected the winners of its first law student writing contest on the topic of challenging denial of vaginal delivery to women with a prior cesarean surgery.
