“Today, Pregnancy Justice, an organization dedicated to defending pregnant people’s rights, released its latest report, Pregnancy as a Crime: A Preliminary Report on the First Year After Dobbs. The report documents that in the first year after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, at least 210 pregnant people faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, abortion, pregnancy loss, or birth. The report finds that in the one-year period from June 24, 2022 to June 23, 2023, there was the highest number of pregnancy-related prosecutions documented in a single year.  Pregnancy Justice’s research shows that, from 1973 to 2023, more than 2,000 individuals across the United States faced prosecution and punishment for circumstances surrounding their pregnancies and pregnancy outcomes. Pregnancy as a Crime shows that in 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. “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,” said Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice. “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. To turn the tide on criminalization, we need to separate health care from the criminal legal system and to change policy and practices to ensure that pregnant people can safely access the health care they need, without fear of criminalization. This report demonstrates that, in post-Dobbs America, being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest.” The majority of cases uncovered in Pregnancy as a Crime took place in states that have enshrined fetal personhood in their civil and criminal laws, such as Alabama (104 cases), Oklahoma (68 cases), and South Carolina (10 cases). These states also have near-total abortion bans and some of the worst maternal and infant health outcomes in the country. The report finds that 22 women were criminalized for experiencing a pregnancy loss. Five cases included the mention of abortion, an attempt to end a pregnancy, or that the defendant researched or explored the possibility of abortion…”