Since Dobbs, Anti-Abortion States Are Prosecuting Pregnant Women More Than Ever

Women are behind bars for the crime of being pregnant in "pro-life" states.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

A record number of women have been charged with pregnancy-related crimes since the Supreme Court ended the era of legal abortion in the US. Between June 2022, when the Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and June 2023, at least 210 women faced criminal charges for actions they took while pregnant, according to a new report from Pregnancy Justice. These charges are concentrated in southern anti-abortion states (Alabama accounts for roughly half of them). And women with substance abuse disorders account for the vast majority of those charged.

The criminalization of pregnant women pre-dates the Dobbs decision, and prosecutors have long charged women for using drugs while pregnant, even if there was no evidence of actual harm to the fetus or baby, and even though being addicted to drugs is not illegal — at least, not when you’re a man, or when you aren’t a pregnant women. This is a key point: Addiction is not a crime. But pregnant women are put in a separate category; their addictions are criminalized. And Dobbs seems to have pitched the criminalization of pregnancy into overdrive.