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.
February 01, 2021 | The New Yorker
The Coronavirus Vaccine Presents a Dilemma for Pregnant Women
Vaccine trials have excluded the pregnant population, even though women of reproductive age make up a majority of frontline workers.