Our Coalition

Fighting for a world that honors the dignity, autonomy, and integrity of all families.

Roots growing new leaves through Black hands. Values written on the image: Holistic Care & Support Before/During/After Giving Birth; Grounded in Justice, Compassion, Equity, and Respect; Free of Racism & Discrimination. Free of Stigmatization.

The Informed Consent Coalition is made up of people directly impacted by the family policing system, organizers, activists, doulas, physicians, nurses, social workers, public defenders, civil rights groups, and reproductive rights and justice organizations.

We come together to:  

  • Build on and from the collective power of our communities, primarily Black, Latine, and Indigenous communities

  • Raise awareness about the harms of the non-consensual drug testing of perinatal people and their infants 

  • Cultivate a shared understanding of family policing as a reproductive and birthing injustice

  • Reimagine family safety and wellbeing for perinatal people and parents who use substances

  • Fight for a world that honors the dignity, autonomy, and family integrity of all perinatal people and parents

Our efforts to advance the Maternal Health, Dignity and Consent Act are embedded within a deeper and broader mission to build a world grounded in racial and reproductive justice.

If you care about racial and reproductive justice, ending test-and-report is not negotiable.

  • SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.

    Test-and-report directly contradicts reproductive justice principles by:

    • Violating our right to maintain personal bodily autonomy: Healthcare providers collecting and testing fluids from our bodies and our children’s bodies and administering verbal screens without informed consent is a clear violation of personal bodily autonomy.

    • Violating our right to have children: Test-and-report undermines the right to have children by putting our families at risk for separation. What’s more, fear of family separation can deter people from having children that they would otherwise want. Test-and-report also creates unsafe birthing conditions by breaking trust between us and our healthcare providers.

    • Violating our right to parent our children in safe and sustainable communities: Test-and-report separates and punishes families instead of creating non-stigmatizing social supports to help them thrive. This practice makes perinatal people AND their babies less safe.

    Test-and-report is intrinsically connected to pregnancy criminalization. Learn more about pregnancy criminalization here.

  • Low-income Black and Latine people and their newborns are dramatically and disproportionately targeted by hospitals for non-consensual—and often secretly conducted—drug tests whether or not they meet hospital guidelines for testing. Meanwhile, studies show that Black and Latine pregnant people use illicit substances at virtually the same rate as white pregnant people.

    This suggests that hospitals’ decisions to target people for non-consensual drug tests are motivated by racism, classism, ableism, and Drug War ideologies, not medical concern.

Black person who uses a wheelchair saying “nothing about us without us.” Web of interconnected needs, issues, and efforts including gender justice, public health, reproductive justice, and more. Web extends to efforts to pass Informed Consent.

Our Core Beliefs

  • Nothing about us, without us. *

    Meaningful change requires the leadership of directly impacted people.

  • Reproductive Justice for all.

    All parents deserve bodily autonomy and self-determination.

  • Substance use does not define parental fitness.

    Substance use does not define how much people love their children or their ability to parent their children.

  • Mamas are medicine.

    The best healthcare for a newborn is their birthing parent.

  • Society neglects our children.

    The most impactful harms children face stem directly from racism, classism, and societal neglect.

  • Healing and care require trust.

    The patient-provider relationship must be rooted in trust and confidentiality.

  • Family policing makes it worse.

    Harm happens within families, but the family policing system does not remedy harm. It exponentially exacerbates it.

*We recognize and honor the origins and history of the powerful demand, “Nothing about us, without us,” derives from our allies in the struggle for disability justice, who have made clear that NO policies should be created without the full participation of those it impacts. Learn more here.

We move in community.

The coalition’s work is rooted in community and the expertise of directly impacted parents and families. We focus on our people before all else. We believe meaningful change will be birthed from healthy and loving relationships grounded in shared values and visions.

  • Beyond the Bars Conference 2024

  • Letter Writing Event 2022

  • Birth and Reproductive Justice Vision Board 2021

  • NYS Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus Weekend 2024 - Stopping Rockefeller 2.0

  • Letter Writing Event 2022

  • Informed Consent NY Coalition Meeting 2021

The Steering Committee

The Steering Committee would like to acknowledge the work of and extend deep gratitude to founding steering committee member Movement for Family Power and prior steering committee member JMACforFamilies.