prosecutions related to pregnancy appear to have increased since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, according to Pregnancy Justice. In the first year after Dobbs — from June 2022 to June 2023 - there were at least 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions, said Wendy Bach, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who worked with Wasilczuk to study the more than 200 cases.
That’s the highest number of pregnancy-related prosecutions documented in a single year since Pregnancy Justice began tracking known cases that have occurred since 1973.
A number of those cases resulted from prosecutors in several states expanding their use of child abuse and neglect laws in recent years to police the conduct of pregnant women under the concept of “fetal personhood,” a tenet promoted by many anti-abortion groups that a fetus should be treated legally the same as a child.
Most states report fetal deaths that occur at 20 weeks gestation or later to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some states also collect reports of deaths prior to 20 weeks — but not all of them send that data to the CDC. Experts say it’s often impossible to determine exactly why a pregnancy ended. Nationally, in states where it is tracked, the most common cause of death for fetuses is “unspecified.”
In 2015, in Arkansas, Annie Bynum walked into a hospital with a plastic bag containing the remains of her stillborn fetus. She ended up going to jail and eventually prison, accused of “concealing” the stillbirth, something that several states, including Arkansas, still label a crime. Such laws date back to the 17th century, intended to shame and accuse women of crimes if they were pregnant and unmarried.
Imagine the trauma of not only losing a pregnancy to a miscarriage, but then being arrested, jailed, and charged following the loss.
“Over 400 women in just two years were arrested, and it’s because of fetal personhood. If fetal personhood didn’t exist, these women would not face charges, So when lawmakers are talking about equal protection for fetuses and embryos, it’s not ‘equal protection,’ it is superior protection. And what that does is that puts pregnant people’s lives at risk, it puts their liberty at risk, and it takes away equality for women and pregnant people.” Dana Sussman, Pregnancy Justice senior vice president
sources :
the marshall project “ Some States Are Turning Miscarriages and Stillbirths Into Criminal Cases Against Women” written by Cary Aspinwall paragraphs 1 - 5
the wisconsin independent “ Pregnancy is increasingly criminalized in the United States” by By Rebekah Fountain paragraph 6 -7
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