This year I have a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation to report on pregnant women and the criminal justice system. Here's my first story, for NBCNews.com: "Pregnant on Opiates: When Following Doctors' Orders Breaks the Law."
Here's an excerpt: Pregnant opiate users and addicts say they sometimes hear one thing from health professionals, who may recommend they be put on a maintenance program like Subutex or Suboxone, and another thing from law enforcement or child welfare agents, who may say that mothers who use any drug, even Subutex or Suboxone, should be investigated. This puts many women in the Catch-22 of either trying to go off a drug completely while pregnant, knowing it could result in a miscarriage, or following their doctor’s orders and fearing that their baby could be taken away at birth... Read the whole thing here.
And here are two other stories I've written on similar topics: "Mommy Had to Go Away for A While," for the New York Times Magazine; and "The Rise of DIY Abortions" for The New Republic.
