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Drug Testing Pregnant Patients: What You Need to Know

Legal Momentum launched a new resource today: Drug Testing Pregnant Patients: What You Need to Know.

As part of our Reproductive Justice efforts, we created this resource in response to the practice of hospitals performing nonconsensual drug tests on pregnant patients when they present for routine healthcare. The outcomes of these drug tests can be detrimental, including leading to invasive child welfare investigations, removal of children from their parents’ care, loss of bonding time with newborns, and prevention of breastfeeding.

Drug Testing Pregnant Patients: What You Need to Know provides pregnant people with baseline information about the harms and potential consequences of nonconsensual drug testing, their rights as a pregnant person seeking healthcare, and ways to take action if they have been subjected to this practice.

We also created a New York specific version that includes additional rights and action items for pregnant people living in New York State.

Both resources can be found here.

For more information, or if you believe you, or someone you know, have been drug tested without consent and would like assistance, please contact our office through our Syms Legal Momentum Gender Equality Helpline at (1-800-649-0297), Help@LMHelpline.org, or https://www.legalmomentum.org/get-help-form.

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