An article published by The Guardian is attempting to paint the end of Roe v. Wade as the beginning of an uptick of prosecutions against women for “conduct relating to their pregnancies.” Using a report from the pro-abortion group Pregnancy Justice, The Guardian claims that more than 200 women were arrested and prosecuted for “pregnancy criminalization” in the “first year post-Roe.” But upon closer look, it appears the data doesn’t show what The Guardian claims it does. In fact, it appears the group behind the data wants anyone who inflicts harm on preborn humans to be free of penalty for doing so — even if that child was “wanted” by his or her parents.
Pregnancy Justice reports that the “highest yearly number of prosecutions related to pregnancy” took place following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. However, most of the arrests included in the “Pregnancy as a Crime” report have nothing to do with the fall of Roe.
The data
Pregnancy Justice reportedly found 210 cases of arrest for “pregnancy criminalization” during the first year following the overturn of Roe. Compared to previous data collected by Pregnancy Justice, this appears to be a shocking increase. But is it?
A 2013 report from Pregnancy Justice showed that from 1973 (when Roe took effect) to 2005, there were just 13 arrests per year. A later report from Pregnancy Justice showed that from January 1, 2006, through June 23, 2022 (the day before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling), there were about 84 arrests per year.
In a press release, Pregnancy Justice wrote, “… [I]n the post-Dobbs environment, pregnant people are under increased surveillance and are getting arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for any actions that have a perceived risk of harm to the pregnancy.”
Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice, claimed, “Our new report shows how the Dobbs decision emboldened prosecutors to develop ever more aggressive strategies to prosecute pregnancy, leading to the most pregnancy-related criminal cases on record. This is directly tied to the radical legal doctrine of ‘fetal personhood,’ which grants full legal rights to an embryo or fetus, turning them into victims of crimes perpetrated by pregnant women. […] This report demonstrates that, in post-Dobbs America, being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest.”
Discrimination against preborn humans
At face value, this is alarming. However, The Guardian admits, “The vast majority of prosecutions documented in the report do not involve abortions.” In fact, only one person in the year following Dobbs was charged under a statute meant to criminalize abortions. The rest involved a bevy of other laws, such as a statute that bans the ‘abuse of a corpse,’ and laws that protect preborn children from being harmed by drug abuse or acts of violence committed against the mothers.
In fact, more than 200 of the 210 recorded prosecutions in the year following the fall of Roe involved allegations of substance abuse during pregnancy.
READ: A growing number of Americans call themselves ‘pro-choice’ – but what’s really behind it?
It isn’t Dobbs that Pregnancy Justice is blaming for investigations into the harm or deaths of children while they are in the womb; it’s respect for preborn children that it takes issue with. The report states (emphasis added):
So-called “fetal personhood” has concerningly gained significant momentum in state laws and judicial decisions. Rather than an abstract ideology, fetal personhood has very real, and truly devastating, impacts on pregnant people’s rights, health, and well-being.
In other words, recognizing the humanity of preborn humans allegedly has a ‘devastating impact’ on pregnant women. It continued:
Pregnant people are, simply by virtue of being pregnant, vulnerable to criminal charges: child abuse or endangerment if they are accused of exposing their fetus to some perceived or actual risk of harm; or murder, feticide, or manslaughter if they experience a pregnancy loss.
Pregnancy Justice also complains (emphasis added):
At least 11 states have broadly incorporated fetal personhood into their state constitutions or state laws covering both criminal and civil laws, and at least 5 additional states have incorporated fetal personhood into their criminal laws specifically. Thirty-eight states have ‘fetal homicide’ statutes, creating a separate and unique crime for causing the loss of a pregnancy. Often heralded as a way to protect pregnant people from violence and other external harm, these laws normalized the concept of the fetus as a separate and unique victim.
In other words, Pregnancy Justice wants legislators to abolish all laws that protect preborn children in any way in order to normalize the discrimination and murder of preborn humans. To Pregnancy Justice, preborn children are subhuman and therefore unworthy of any protection.
It does not matter to them if an abusive partner beats a woman in an attempt to cause a miscarriage, if a man murders a woman who refuses to get an abortion, or if a driver crashes into a car injuring a pregnant woman and killing her preborn twins. This group does not want those human lives in the womb to count. At all. Not even if they were “wanted” by their mothers when the crimes against them were committed.
If there are laws protecting any preborn child, logically there must be laws protecting every preborn child — and Pregnancy Justice, in a warped and twisted way, recognizes the inherent inconsistency. To protect abortion, its advocates are willing to deny the inherent value and humanity of every preborn child.
