In addition to the rollback of abortion rights in many states, pregnant people are being monitored and policed in other ways that The Marshall Project has been extensively covering. The Marshall Project will host a webinar to walk you through our reporting and offer guidance on how to do this investigative work in your own community.
You’ll hear from Shoshana Walter and Jill Castellano, whose recent investigation uncovered more than 70,000 births in 21 states that triggered referrals to law enforcement over alleged substance use during pregnancy — even though these reports are often based on unreliable hospital drug tests that yield false positive results or are easily misinterpreted.
When this happens, women can be interrogated by police shortly after giving birth, jailed and prosecuted for testing positive due to legal substances, such as poppy seeds, CBD gummies to alleviate nausea, and even the fentanyl from their epidurals. This investigation also includes a reporting toolkit to help journalists and researchers dig into this issue locally.
The event will be moderated by Cary Aspinwall, who uncovered how miscarriages and stillbirths are being investigated as crimes in several states. Her reporting shows that how a person handles a pregnancy loss — and where it occurs — can be the difference between a private medical issue and a criminal charge for abuse of a corpse, child neglect or even murder. Aspinwall's investigations have found that a positive drug test after a pregnancy loss can result in criminal charges for the parent, and even prison time. And even when babies are born healthy, laws embracing the concept of fetal personhood are putting people behind bars.
Here’s more information about each of our Marshall Project speakers:
Staff Writer Cary Aspinwall is based in Oklahoma and has led a reporting team that documented prosecutions of pregnant people, examined why so many people are serving life without parole sentences and worked on short documentaries with Frontline and our Inside Story team. She has won an Edward R. Murrow Award and a Gerald Loeb Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and the National Magazine Awards for public interest.
Data Reporter Jill Castellano is based in Los Angeles and covers the uses and misuses of criminal justice data in American society. Before joining The Marshall Project, Castellano worked for ABC television, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Desert Sun and inewsource. She earned a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2018 for her work with USA TODAY on the deaths of undocumented border crossers. While in college at the University of Pennsylvania, Castalleno helped conduct research studies in a criminology laboratory, and she graduated with degrees in criminology and psychology.
Staff Writer Shoshana Walter is based in Oakland and is the author of “Rehab: An American Scandal,” from Simon & Schuster. At The Marshall Project, Walter has exposed how hospitals across the country routinely drug test patients who give birth and report them to child welfare authorities based on the results of faulty drug tests. Her reporting has prompted criminal and congressional probes and new laws, and has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, on NPR, on CNN and in newspapers across the country. She has also been honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won numerous awards, including the Livingston Award, the IRE Medal and the Murrow Award.
This training event will be recorded and is part of Investigate This!, which shares criminal justice datasets and other investigative resources with journalists and researchers.