We’re writing with some fantastic news!
Last August, we filed a legal brief in support of Moira Akers, a Maryland woman who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for experiencing a stillbirth, arguing that it is unlawful to use her decisions during pregnancy as evidence against her. This week, the Maryland Supreme Court decided that her conviction could not stand and that there needed to be a new trial.
The court adopted our reasoning and cited our report on fetal personhood, finding that the prosecution was based on the concept that fetuses have legal rights, which goes against Maryland law. This makes Ms. Akers’ internet searches for abortion pills and decisions around prenatal care irrelevant. The court also rejected the use of the lung float test – a deeply inaccurate forensic test used to “determine” if a baby was born alive – to try to establish that Ms. Akers lied about having a stillbirth.
Arguments like these rely on the dangerous concept that fetuses have legal rights, leading to more pregnancy-related prosecutions, and they rely on stereotypes about what makes a “good mother” and how pregnant people should act, which has no place in the law.
Despite the challenging moment we’re in, this decision is a reminder that we can still achieve victories and fight back against injustice. This ruling can now be used in state courts around the country to fight against the criminalization of pregnancy loss. We’re pleased to have advocated for Ms. Akers, along with briefs filed by the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Association, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland, the ACLU Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative, and If/When/How.
We hope Maryland will make the right choice by dropping this unfounded prosecution and upholding Ms. Akers’ lawfully protected rights. The state cannot use actions during pregnancy to criminalize someone for their birth outcomes.
SOURCE: Pregnancy Justice Newsletter – Ending the Week with a Win, 21 February 2025.
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by Wendy A Bach & Madalyn K Wasilczuk
Executive Summary
This report presents the preliminary findings of a research study seeking to document all charges of pregnancy criminalization in the country in the three years after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The report covers the first year after Dobbs, from 24 June 2022 to 23 June 2023. The research is ongoing and will result in additional reports in the coming years. The research protocol is approved by the Institutional Review Board of University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
In the first year after Dobbs, at least 210 pregnant people faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. In one sense, this is nothing new. Pregnancy Justice (then National Advocates for Pregnant Women), along with other reporters and researchers, documented over 1,800 cases of pregnancy-related charges between 1973 and the Dobbs decision in 2022.
Yet the 210 prosecutions initiated in this one-year period represent a high-water mark—the largest single-year number since researchers began tracking these cases. Two important caveats temper this finding. First, even a number as high as 210 prosecutions represents an undercount of cases; in fact, the research team continues to uncover additional cases initiated during this period and will add them to the dataset as part of a comprehensive three-year report published at the end of the study. Second, the research team had more resources to devote to uncovering cases and focused on a shorter time period than prior researchers. Therefore, it is possible that those resources allowed the team to uncover a higher proportion of cases than in the past.
Key Preliminary Findings
» There were at least 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions in the first year after Dobbs— 24 June 2022 to 23 June 2023—the highest number of pregnancy-related prosecutions documented in a single year.
» Prosecutions in Alabama represent nearly half of the documented prosecutions (104) and Oklahoma represented nearly a third (68), followed by South Carolina (10), Ohio (7), Mississippi (6), and Texas (6).
» The majority of defendants were low income. Of the 210 defendants, 143 were white; 30 were Black; 13 were Native American; 9 were Latinx, and 15 had no information with respect to race or ethnicity.
» The majority of pregnancy-related charges (198/220) allege a form of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment. The remaining include nine charges of criminal homicide; eight drug charges; one abortion-specific crime (under a now-repealed portion of a criminal abortion statute); one charge of abuse of a corpse, and three additional miscellaneous crimes.
» The majority of charges alleged substance use during pregnancy. In 133 cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the defendant.
» Five cases included allegations concerning abortion. Those cases alleged an abortion procedure, an attempt to end a pregnancy or an allegation that the defendant researched or explored the possibility of an abortion. One person faced an abortion crime charge and the rest faced homicide, abuse of a corpse, or child neglect charges. Four of the five pregnancy outcomes in these cases took place outside a medical setting.
» Twenty-two cases involved a fetal or infant demise and allegations regarding conduct concerning pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth.
» Prosecutors overwhelmingly charged pregnant people with offenses that allow them to obtain convictions without having to prove that the pregnant person harmed the fetus or infant. One hundred ninety-one of 220 charges lacked a harm requirement.
» In 121 of the 210 cases, information was obtained or disclosed in a medical setting, and 114 cases indicated involvement by the family policing system.
Key findings
“This report shares preliminary results, focusing solely on charges brought and allegations made in the first year after Dobbs. If an investigation did not lead to charges, it is not included in the report.”
“Pregnancy criminalization occurs when the state wields a criminal law to render acts associated with a pregnancy, pregnancy loss, birth, and/or associated healthcare the subject of criminal prosecution.”
“The states that have the highest number of documented prosecutions in this study also have some of the worst maternal and infant health outcomes.”
“In 15 cases, prosecutors or police argued that pregnant people’s failure to obtain prenatal care was evidence of a crime.”
“Several women who appear to have faced serious health conditions, devastating pregnancy losses, and enormous trauma, were met not with offers of care but threatened with punishment for finding themselves in allegedly dangerous situations or allegedly not seeking help quickly enough.”
“Out of fear of criminalization and family separation, many pregnant people avoid healthcare settings, even when they desire care.”
“Opioid-related deaths are the leading cause of death among pregnant people. Despite this crisis, pregnant people with substance use disorders face significant barriers to accessing care, treatment, and social support. Criminalization only worsens this crisis.”
“Prosecutors overwhelmingly charged pregnant people with offenses that allow them to obtain convictions without having to prove that the pregnant person actually harmed the fetus or infant.”
“Even when abortion is not charged, pregnant people’s contemplation of abortion can be weaponized against them.”
“Pregnancy criminalization continues to co-opt healthcare providers as law enforcement to achieve compliance with its aims.”
“We build toward a future without criminalization and where everyone can access the healthcare and support they need to live and thrive, free from discrimination, state violence or coercion, family separation, or stigma.”
SOURCE: Pregnancy-as-a-Crime; PDF(www.pregnancyjusticeus.org), September 2024
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How scaling back enforcement of FACE Act affects those on each side of abortion debate
All Things Considered, Programme on National Public Radio (NPR), © NPR 2025 https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5312008/how-scaling-back-enforcement-of-face-act-affects-those-on-each-side-of-abortion-debate (You can listen to the programme here, 4 minutes)
by Ryan Lucas, Juana Summers
7 March 2025
The Department of Justice will only enforce in “extraordinary circumstances” violations of the law that prohibits interfering with people providing or receiving reproductive health care services.
For more than 30 years, there has been a federal law on the books known as the FACE Act. It prohibits intentional interference with people either providing or receiving reproductive health care services, including abortions. Now the US Justice Department says it is sharply scaling back enforcement of that law. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas looked into what this means for people on both sides of the abortion issue.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: In late August of 2021, Phoebe Brandt was seeing patients at a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia, where she works as a nurse practitioner. At a certain point that morning, she stopped by the front office and was told that a man had barricaded himself in one of the clinic’s bathrooms.
PHEBE BRANDT: I mean, at that very moment, we really didn’t know what was going on. We didn’t know if he was armed. We didn’t know if he had a bomb on him. It was very scary just because we didn’t know what was happening.
LUCAS: The clinic had to be evacuated. The man holed up in the bathroom was an anti-abortion activist named Matthew Connolly. He wasn’t armed, but court papers say he refused to leave even after the police came. Eventually, a SWAT team broke down the door and took him away. Connolly’s actions, though, forced the clinic to shut down for the day.
BRANDT: We had patients who had been in the middle of their visit who were standing around hoping to get back in, who were told, we’re sorry, you have to go home. And then all of the other patients for the day had to be called and told not to come in.
LUCAS: Federal prosecutors brought a civil case under the FACE Act against Connolly, seeking to impose financial penalties and deter future violations, one of several such cases the Justice Department brought under the Biden administration. Now the Trump administration has moved to undo all of that. The Justice Department’s new leadership says it will only enforce violations of the FACE Act in extraordinary circumstances, such as death or serious property damage. Local authorities can handle anything short of that.
The Department also dropped three pending FACE Act cases, including the one against Connolly. President Trump, meanwhile, pardoned 23 people convicted of violating the FACE Act. Abortion providers, including Brandt, think this gives a green light to anyone who wants to disrupt clinics in the future.
BRANDT: It basically tells them that there will be no consequences for them to come into our centers, disrupting, then potentially even be violent.
LUCAS: The FACE Act was passed by Congress in 1994 with bipartisan support to prevent rising violence against abortion clinics and providers, including the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn by an anti-abortion extremist.
MELISSA FOWLER: The FACE Act has been incredibly effective at curbing some of the major types of violence and obstruction that we saw really escalating in the early ’90s.
LUCAS: That’s Melissa Fowler from the National Abortion Federation. She says enforcement of the FACE Act has varied over the years, with Democratic administrations generally being seen as more active than Republican ones. But the Trump administration’s decision to sharply limit enforcement of it, she says, is unprecedented.
FOWLER: It really shouldn’t take an abortion provider being murdered for the federal government to enforce a law that has been effective at keeping providers safe and helping people access care.
LUCAS: For opponents of abortion, though, the department’s decision is a source of optimism, [for example] Monica Miller, the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society. She was also a defendant in one of the federal cases recently dropped by the Justice Department.
MILLER: I’ve always felt very deeply that this was a flawed law. It was unfair. It went after a particular social justice group for higher penalties.
LUCAS: Some abortion opponents have called for a renewed push to disrupt clinics in light of the new FACE Act charging policy. For her part, Miller says the department’s approach will make it easier to conduct disruptive actions at clinics. But she says activists can still face legal consequences under [some] states’ laws, so it’s too soon to say how big of an effect it will have. Either way, abortion providers say they are already bracing for more activity and hostility at their clinics.
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Ultrasound now required before abortion with pills in Wyoming after anti-abortion “lawmakers”, who are ignorant of medical issues, override the governor’s veto
Women seeking an abortion with pills in the state of Wyoming will need to get an ultrasound after lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto of the law.
Wednesday’s 22-9 vote by the state Senate followed a 45-16 vote by the House on Tuesday to override. In vetoing the bill Monday, Republican Gov. Mark Gordon questioned whether it was reasonable and necessary, especially for victims of rape and incest.
SOURCE: CNN, by Associated Press. 5 March 2025