Shel Lyons started Mothers Rights Network in August 2007 to create a non-profit organization focused solely on the legal atmosphere of mothers' rights issues. At the time of its foundation, Mothers Rights Network was a unique concept. Non-profit organizations either focused on women's rights without a special section for mothers' rights, or they focused on one particular area of mothers' rights, such as maternity leave, health care, or reproductive rights. Mothers Rights Network was the first organization to focus on legal and social changes through litigation and legislation with a focus on mothers' rights in all three fields affecting mothers: medical and hospital policies; product safety and labeling; and workplace protections for pregnant and nursing mothers.
Start of MRN
After the birth of her first daughter in 2006, Shel Lyons looked for an organization working to make progress in these three areas (medical, product, and workforce policies and law) but nothing like Mothers' Rights Network existed yet. Shel then looked to leave her job with the United States Department of Justice to start a mothers' rights section with a different organization doing women's rights work, but she could not find an organization willing to start in this new area. Shel decided to resign from the U.S. Department of Justice to start the Mothers Rights Network and work full-time addressing these issues.
Education & Experience
Shel Lyons received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley; and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Shel clerked with the Honorable Sharon Prost on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and worked as an Honors Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2003-2004, Shel was a visiting student at University of California, Berkeley Law School - Boalt Hall, where she took coursework in Social Justice, Employment Law, and Child Welfare Law.
Background in Mothers Rights
Shel Lyons always had an interest in women's rights and mothers' rights issues, but her first introduction to mothers' rights as a separate category from women's rights began at her Bradley Birth Course when she was pregnant with her first child. During the course, designed for pregnant mothers determined to have natural, drug-free labors, Shel learned about this nation's high c-section rates, high infant and maternal mortality rates, insufficient maternity leaves, unfair and unsafe hospital & insurance policies regarding pregnant and nursing mothers, and misleading advertising and marketing of infant formula and food. After doing extensive reseach, Shel decided to labor at a mid-wife run center called Birth Care and began to advocate for mothers' rights at hospitals and workplaces.
Publications
In September 2007, UN Visions published her first article on breastfeeding rights. Shel will given her first talk on the safety of hospital births to ICAN of DC (Internation C-section Awareness Network) on March 30, 2008. Shel is currently drafting two more articles: one regarding the Philippine Supreme Court case on infant formula; and one regarding rights for divorced women in the Americas.
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