Nearly 1,400 people were arrested for pregnancy-related offenses between 2006 and Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a fresh report published on Tuesday. The data showed a acute enhance in cases in which people face criminal consequences because of pregnancy.
Most of the cases involved allegations of substance abuse, even when no harm was done to the fetus or infant, according to a report by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice.
Criminalization disproportionately affects indigent whites and blacks in the South, with nearly four out of five cases occurring in just five Southern states: Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. and Tennessee.
West Virginia also reported three cases. Some states reported zero cases.
“Pregnancy Justice’s report shows that pregnant women are increasingly being criminalized in ways that non-pregnant women are not, with devastating consequences for themselves and their families,” said Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice.
The group defines the criminalization of pregnancy as a case in which a person is either arrested for reasons related to his or her pregnancy or in which the conditions of his or her bail, sentence, or probation are enhanced because he or she became pregnant after being charged with another crime.”
The rise in pregnancy criminalization is largely driven by the increasing prevalence of the concept of “fetal personhood” in anti-abortion rhetoric and laws, the report says.
The Republican-led West Virginia state legislature passed a comprehensive ban on abortion with few exceptions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe decision.
The number of cases of pregnancy criminalization has tripled since the last study In 2013which covered a shorter period of time.
