More Women Face Pregnancy-Related Charges After Roe’s Fall, Report Finds
Want to protect abortion access nationwide? Tell your representatives to take action.
What’s the story?
- A report released by Pregnancy Justice, a women's health advocacy group, found that women have been increasingly charged with pregnancy-related crimes since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
- The group reported that at least 210 people in the U.S. were prosecuted for conduct relating to their pregnancies—the highest number of cases recorded in a single year. Researchers warn that this is probably an underestimate of 2022 to 2023 charges.
- Pregnancy Justice’s report is the first comprehensive account of pregnancy-related crimes since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
The details of the report
- The majority of the cases did not involve abortion and rarely accused women of violating an abortion ban. Nevertheless, women’s health experts and advocates are concerned that this trend illustrates the growing attempt to control, regulate, and criminalize women’s bodies and pregnancies.
- Five cases mentioned allegations of an abortion, an attempted abortion, or “researching or exploring the possibility of abortion.” One of the cases involved a woman delivering a stillborn baby in her home. When the woman attempted to make funeral arrangements, the authorities were alerted, and she was charged with homicide. She is not alone in this, as many other women have reported a similar experience—over three-quarters of the cases in the report involved fetal or infant loss. President of Pregnancy Justice, Lourdes Rivera, said:
“It’s an environment where pregnancy loss is potentially criminally suspect.”
- More than 95% of the prosecutions involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy, with charges of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment. In these cases, the fetus or embryo is legally treated as a person, potentially competing with the rights of the person carrying them. Over 100 cases included in the report were in Alabama, where the state's Supreme Court ruled that embryos are “extrauterine children.”
What they’re saying
- Advocates are noting how prosecutors, in these cases, must prove that the defendant posed some risk to the pregnancy, which could lead to criminalization of behavior that is not actually dangerous. Zenovia Earle, media and communications director for Pregancy Justice, said:
“It’s ultimately, a lot of the time, based on someone’s perception of risky behavior, however they might define it, and it’s often based on stereotypes or outdated notions.”
- In more than half of the reported cases, information used against the defendant was obtained in a medical setting, shining a light on social workers or health care providers that tip off police to a suspected interest in, or self-managed, abortion. Wendy Bach, a University of Tennessee professor and the report’s principal investigator, said:
“[N]ow we have people all over the country hiding real healthcare needs and not reaching out for help. That’s the effect of this. I would like a society in which people who need care, seek care. But if this is what’s going to happen, then it is totally rational to not seek care.”
Want to protect abortion access nationwide? Tell your representatives to take action.
-Jamie Epstein
(Photo credit: Flickr/Matt Hrkac)
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Byron Trump is so out of here! Will it be retroactive?
Shameful.
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The women in my life were fuming today! They hadn't quite heard it this way! Not happy at all!
FU Reps.
Swastika flag; your body, my choice is true under fascist dictatorship!
A Russian asset.
Christian crusade have kill and abused human rights from the beginning of time!
A fine line to walk on free speech and protest, plus holding government accountable for their actions!
Nick Fuentes “Your body, my choice Forever”
This is your gift for voting trump
are you happy now women of america ?
We need to round up all the fraud and criminals and give them official office positions. That way we know where they are! Oh Trumps already working on it!
So it begins, people are starting to see who their parter is!
Trump understood that white women loyalty to white supremacy and patriarchal power. From the beginning of time of being brain washed, that you need a man to survive and you can't make it on your own. Women have been suppressed from the beginning of time!
Sad but there will be more!
More of how "Freedom Rings in Texas' .... NOT!
"A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital
Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped." https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban
FU crenshaw, cruz, cornyn, abbortt(sp?), paxton, patrick, you F'ing 💩, putin "thingy" lickers!
The crazy part, no local channels covered it!
Women rights are not the only thing we will loose!
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Is he the same Pope that is a pedophile of children?
Infants died at higher rates after abortion bans in the US, research shows
YES scotus you have blood on your hands!
shame on you
Infant mortality rate has increased sense the Dobbs decision. Good job Supreme Court not only kill women, now killing babies!