National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) is a New York City-based 501c3 non-profit, legal advocacy organizations that seeks to protect the rights and human dignity of all people, focusing on pregnant and parenting women and those who are most likely to be targeted for state control and punishment, including low income women, women of color, and drug-using women. NAPW works to ensure that women do not lose their constitutional and human rights as a result of pregnancy; that addiction and other health and welfare problems they face during pregnancy are addressed as health issues, not as crimes; that families are not needlessly separated based on medical misinformation; and that pregnant and parenting women have access to a full range of reproductive health services, as well as non-punitive drug treatment services. NAPW uses the lessons learned from the experiences of these women to find more effective ways of advancing reproductive and human rights for all women and families.

Our work encompasses litigation, litigation support, and legal advocacy; local and national organizing; and public policy development, public education, and outreach. Two principles guide all NAPW activities: (1) to build bridges and align agendas across diverse public health and social justice movements, and (2) to leverage and connect local organizing and activism with national advocacy and policy work.

To that end, NAPW is actively involved in ongoing court challenges to punitive reproductive health and drug policies and provides litigation support in cases across the country. NAPW engages in local and national organizing and public education efforts among the diverse communities that are stakeholders in these issues, including the women and families directly affected by punitive policies, as well as public health and policy leaders.