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Project February 2, 2021

The Coronavirus Presents a Dilemma for Pregnant Women

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A pregnant woman goes for a walk in a public park in Madrid. Image by JoeLogan / Shutterstock. Spain, 2020.
A pregnant woman goes for a walk in a public park in Madrid. Image by JoeLogan / Shutterstock. Spain, 2020.

This story for The New Yorker's website looks at how pregnant and breastfeeding workers are grappling with the lack of data on the Covid vaccine's safety for their population. It dives into the history of how anti-abortion politics, concern for the developing fetus, and the horrors of medical experiments on non-consenting human subjects informed regulations, developed in the 1970s, around who could participate in clinical trials. Although the designation of pregnant people as a "vulnerable population" has been removed, they are still routinely excluded from clinical trials, illustrating the ongoing effect of those political and social forces today.

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