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A new report finds that hundreds of people have been charged with so-called “pregnancy-related crimes” in the two years following the Supreme Court’s overturn of abortion protections in the U.S.
“From June 2022 to June 2024 — the first two years after the Supreme Court’s decision in
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade — prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases across the country charging individuals with crimes related to their pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth,” reads the report from Pregnancy Justice, an organization that seeks to defend the rights of pregnant people.
Among those 412 defendants, 441 charges were brought against them, the vast majority alleging child neglect, endangerment or abuse — “statutes used by prosecutors beyond their original intent to target pregnancy,” Pregnancy Justice noted in a press release accompanying the report.
In addition to those types of charges, 31 prosecutions targeted people who experienced a pregnancy loss, with the state in those cases viewing a person’s miscarriage or stillbirth with suspicion.
The cases spanned across 16 states. A majority of the cases arose from within just three states: Alabama, with 192 cases; Oklahoma, with 112; and South Carolina, with 62.
The report examines just the first two years after the Dobbs decision was decided, and doesn’t include data for the third year. In the first year after that decision, Pregnancy Justice identified 261 people who were charged with pregnancy-related crimes. In year two, they found 151 additional people who were charged by states.
Although the number of individuals charged seems to have gone down, Pregnancy Justice warns that their numbers are likely an undercount.
“Collecting this data is often challenging: There is no centralized database to view arrest or court records across the U.S., most charges are brought under common statutes not specific to pregnancy or abortion, and court record systems vary by state or county,” the press release from the organization explained.
Indeed, when the report was issued last year, only 210 people had been identified as being charged by states with pregnancy-related crimes, indicating that Pregnancy Justice has since identified 51 additional people who had been charged that year.
“As it can take months or years for cases to be identified and analyzed, the total numbers for each year will continue to be updated annually,” the organization added.
The report notes that more than three-quarters of charges were made against people with lower incomes. Over three-quarters of the charges stemmed from allegations relating to substance use during pregnancy — claims that aren’t always accurate, previous iterations of Pregnancy Justice’s reports have noted.
Indeed, in 378 of the 441 charges — almost 86 percent of all charges examined by the report — no proof of harm had been required for prosecutors to bring charges.
Twenty-nine cases involved charges against people for failure to obtain prenatal care, which is harder for people to access if they have low incomes. In nine cases, people faced charges relating to “obtaining, attempting or researching an abortion.”
Pregnancy Justice’s president, Lourdes A. Rivera, said the report revealed that states are “giving separate legal rights to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses,” and that doing so “has real and dangerous consequences for pregnant people.”
“Instead of investing in maternal and reproductive health, prosecutors are weaponizing the law against pregnant people, especially in states already facing maternal mortality and infant health crises,” Rivera said.
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