Since Roe fell, hundreds of pregnancies have become crimes

Donald Trump is currently bragging about having ended the constitutional right to abortion while simultaneously—and creepily—declaring himself a great “protector” of women. Meanwhile, in the real world, the fall of Roe v. Wade has led to a massive spike in people facing criminal charges related to their pregnancies. Some protection. 

Regrettably, the criminalization of pregnancy is nothing new. Pregnant people are arrested for using illicit substances during their pregnancies, a repugnant legacy of the “War on Drugs” and the moral panic around “crack babies.” But pregnant people have also been arrested for using legal substances, such as prescribed opioids, nicotine, and alcohol and for attempting suicide during their pregnancies. 

Even before Roe was overturned in June 2022, Pregnancy Justice found that nearly 1,400 people were arrested and charged with pregnancy-related crimes from 2006 to 2022. And that number was a huge leap from the previous 33 years of legal abortion, where only 413 criminal cases were brought. 

The demise of Roe, unsurprisingly, has turbo-charged these attacks on pregnant people, with 210 people being criminally charged in just the first year after Roe was reversed. The conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization refused to weigh in on fetal personhood—laws that give fetuses the same rights as actual live people. By refusing to address it, Dobbs left the door open for states to enforce those laws. If the fetus has the same rights as the pregnant person, that person can be prosecuted for anything that harms the fetus.