Pregnancy as a Crime Post-Dobbs: A Preliminary Report
New research by Pregnancy Justice shows that abortion restrictions play a significant role in the criminalization of pregnancy. Their report, with graphs illustrating the statistics, is a part of a larger three-year study that explores the criminalization of pregnancy in the United States.
Laws protecting fetal personhood, for instance, assert that a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus is a person that is separate and distinct from the birthing parent. Not all of the states mentioned in the report have such laws. But five of the states with the highest number of prosecutions for crimes related to pregnancy do have fetal personhood laws.
In the first year after the Dobbs decision (June 24, 2022 to June 23, 2023), at least 210 pregnant people were charged with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and birth. The report from Pregnancy Justice provides a preliminary overview of the cases. Researchers found that most of the charges referred to child abuse, neglect, or endangerment. Most of the allegations against the pregnant people related to substance use before pregnancy or during pregnancy. This highlights how fetal personhood is often prioritized over the birthing parent's bodily autonomy.
Most pregnant people who faced criminal charges were low-income, and 143 of them were white. The disparities reflect an unjust and racist system that values white life above the lives of people of color.
While prosecutors claimed that they were trying to prevent harm, they pressed charges without having to prove there was any harm. For instance, a pregnant person could give birth to a healthy child and still be charged with endangerment. Rather provide birthing people with help and support, law enforcement criminalized them, and took custody of their children. Pregnancy criminalization can contribute to fear and pregnant people may avoid seeking care in healthcare settings as medical providers are encouraged to serve as law enforcement.
Fetal personhood, as manifested through pregnancy criminalization, is not about protecting fetuses from harm. It is about controlling and punishing pregnant people, particularly women who do not conform to racialized ideals of motherhood.Far from making pregnancy, birth, and parenting safer and healthier, criminalization threatens all people’s bodily autonomy, their power to make reproductive healthcare decisions free from government interference, and their ability to live and parent in safe and healthy communities.
SOURCE: Pregnancy Justice • AUTHOR: Wendy A. Bach and Madalyn K. Wasilczuk • LAST UPDATED: September 1, 2024
