A disturbing study by Pregnancy Justice found that pregnant women “are under increased surveillance and are getting arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for any actions that have a perceived risk of harm to the pregnancy.” In the year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, at least 210 pregnant women have faced such criminal charges. That’s “the highest number of pregnancy-related prosecutions documented in a single year.”
This is not coincidental. The majority of cases came from Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina, states with near-total abortion bans and with fetal personhood laws. “In the vast majority of cases (191), the charges brought against the pregnant person did not require any ‘proof’ of harm to the fetus or baby, but merely a perceived risk of harm,” such as researching the possibility of abortion.
Ironically, those “pro-life” states also have some of the worst maternal and infant health outcomes in the country, Pregnancy Justice noted. Unsurprisingly, most of the defendants were low-income.
Slate’s Mary Ziegler pointed out that this trend “reflects not only the priority put on fetal personhood within the anti-abortion movement but also the rise of a particularly punitive idea of personhood, one that equates justice for the fetus with criminalization.”
We always knew anti-abortion extremists were more interested in controlling women than in saving lives. Thanks to the Supreme Court, prosecuting women is the obvious next step.
