Pregnancy is increasingly criminalized in the United States

‘In a post-Dobbs world, every pregnancy loss is potentially suspect,’ said Dana Sussman, senior vice president of Pregnancy Justice.

January 21, 2026
By Rebekah Sager

Imagine the trauma of not only losing a pregnancy to a miscarriage, but then being arrested, jailed, and charged following the loss. According to legal scholars, the number of pregnant people being charged with crimes in connection with miscarriages, along with those charged in connection with abortions, is increasing.

In the fall of 2024, Pregnancy Justice, a national advocacy organization that defends the civil and legal rights of pregnant people, released a study documenting 210 pregnancy-related criminal cases brought in the two years that followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that reversed Roe v. Wade. A year later, the organization updated the figure to 412 pregnancy-related criminal cases. Many of those cases concerned substance abuse during pregnancies that resulted in live births.

Continued: https://pennsylvaniaindependent.com/reproductive_rights/pregnancy-miscarriage-abortion-criminal-charges-fetal-personhood-laws-loss/

21.01.2026

Commentary

Criminalizing Pregnancy

criminalizing women

criminalizing women for miscarriage

In Post-Roe America, Abortion Care Is Being Reborn From the Ground Up

A British doctor finds fear and legal chaos being transformed into a new, decentralized model of reproductive freedom

Sabrina Das
Jan 13, 2026

Along the broad, ceremonial expanse of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., its lanes framed by rows of evenly spaced trees, Amy Allina paused to remember how her career began. Years before she established herself as a consultant for reproductive rights nonprofits, she learned how to perform abortions with nothing more than a length of plastic tubing and a mason jar.

It was the early 1990s. She was part of a loose network of feminist health collectives — women who believed, with a conviction that feels almost radical now, that information belonged to everyone, especially when it concerned their bodies. A mentor taught her “menstrual extraction,” a low-tech method capable of removing the contents of the uterus in very early pregnancy. The procedure was performed in living rooms and kitchens, surrounded by friends. There were no machines, no metal instruments, no men in white coats.

Continued: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/in-post-roe-america-abortion-care-is-being-reborn-from-the-ground-up/

13.01.2026

crisis pregnancy centers

Dr. Victoria Williams

self-managed abortion

Self-Managed Abortion; Safe and Supported project

shield laws

Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity

telemedicine abortion

USA – Whose Abortion Is It?

The Harms of State-Mandated Parental Notification for Abortion and Judicial Bypass in the United States

Oct 29, 2025
Human Rights Watch

Years ago, Angela, now a staff member at an abortion clinic in the United States, became pregnant unexpectedly at age 16. She accessed abortion care with support from the person she trusted most: her mother. “I had an extremely supportive mother who helped me through that process,” she said. Angela’s experience shaped her commitment to defend everyone’s right to confidential reproductive health care with support from those they trust: “This is no one else’s choice and no one else’s business.” She began working for an abortion clinic a decade ago. “This was always what I wanted to do.” In July 2022, just after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, Angela and her family moved from a state that banned abortion to a state that protected access so that she could continue working in abortion care. Now she supports young people under 18 who need abortion care.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/10/29/whose-abortion-is-it/the-harms-of-state-mandated-parental-notification-for

Herbal Abortion Is Making a Comeback. So Are the Dangers.

Since the Supreme Court gutted Roe, interest in old folk methods of terminating pregnancies has spiked. But the health and legal risks involved with these treatments are stark.

Julia Sonenshein
September 9, 2025

Though not particularly common in most herb gardens these days, rue can add a bit of bitter and bring balance to a dish gone too sweet or salty. Pennyroyal looks like mint and has a similar, zingy taste. Mugwort is tart. Tansy flowers into perfect yellow buds. Parsley is likely in your refrigerator right now, wilting a bit in your crisper drawer.

These herbs—along with a host of other foods, drinks, and cooking utensils—have all been used as abortifacients, or substances that terminate pregnancies, and have played a role in virtually every region of the world. Their usage has varied depending on the culture, political climate, concepts of gender, influence of faith, or power of the state. In many cases, they were used on this land before the formation of the United States, and they’ve been part of U.S. history since the early colonies.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/198841/herbal-abortion-revival-dobbs-health

USA – The Choice Some Pregnant Immigrants Face: Deportation or Parenthood

“People who are undocumented are scared to go anywhere, to do anything, to go to the doctor.”
Laura C. Morel, Mother Jones
July 3, 2025

Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, and Texas completely outlawed abortion in communities along the Rio Grande Valley, the effect was swift. In this region, which is home to 1.4 million residents, most of them Latinx or immigrants, the area’s only abortion clinic in McAllen was forced to shut down.

“When we lost that, people lost care. That was the immediate first blow and it did send shock waves,” says Cathy Torres, organizing manager for the Frontera Fund, an abortion fund serving border communities in Texas from Brownsville to El Paso. The organization provides financial support toward abortions, flights, and hotels for people forced to leave the state for medical care. After the Dobbs decision, they also began funding other reproductive health services such as birth control and STI testing.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/the-choice-some-pregnant-immigrants-face-deportation-or-parenthood/

As Expected, Minors Are Among Those Most Impacted by Anti-Abortion Laws

“Without access to abortion, these girls have lost the ability to control their lives and their futures,” one researcher said.

By Kylie Cheung
April 7, 2025

In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, advocates warned that minors, whose ability to travel across state lines or buy abortion pills online is already constrained, would be among those most impacted by state abortion bans. A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics this week found that two-thirds of girls ages 13 to 17 now live in states that ban or severely restrict their abortion access.
Specifically, the study reported that 66% of teen girls in this age range live in states with total bans, bans with severe gestational limits (between six and 22 weeks), and parental involvement requirements for them to access abortion.

“Minors are often targeted by restrictive policies and less able to use routes to abortion care common for adults—traveling to another state or using telehealth—leaving them disproportionately impacted,” Laura Lindberg, a professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and author of the study, said in a statement. “Without access to abortion, these girls have lost the ability to control their lives and their futures.”

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/as-expected-minors-are-among-those-most-impacted-by-anti-abortion-laws

07.04.2025

parental consent for abortion

Rutgers School of Public Health

Abortion Bans Are Making It Impossible for Advocates to Help Abuse Victims

“To have to say to someone, ‘You live in a state where you’re more likely to be criminalized than the person who’s abusing you’—it’s devastating,” If/When/How’s Sara Ainsworth told Jezebel.

By Kylie Cheung
March 26, 2025

In 2007, Erica DuBois learned she was pregnant just two months after becoming cancer-free. And then the abuse began, she recalled to Jezebel. Her partner would invoke religion to justify physically harming her: “He talked about the beatings and violence like a test—if the baby survived, then it was God’s will,” DuBois said. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but as a result of these sustained beatings, her first pregnancy was the only one that didn’t end in a miscarriage. She sometimes tried to take birth control pills, but when her abuser found them, he punished her. This violence would only escalate when she inevitably became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/abortion-bans-are-making-it-impossible-for-advocates-to-help-abuse-victims

USA – Where the Conservative War on Abortion Pills Is Headed

By Andrea González-Ramírez, the Cut
March 12, 2025

In his nearly two months in office, President Donald Trump has only made small moves to advance his anti-abortion agenda. But his Justice Department’s decisions to enforce a law that protects abortion clinics from violence only in “extraordinary” cases and to stop defending a Biden-era lawsuit against Idaho that sought to protect access to emergency abortion care in hospitals send a clear signal: The federal government will not defend what curtailed abortion rights remain post-Dobbs. Now, Republican lawmakers emboldened by that message are going after their most urgent target: abortion pills.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/republicans-unleash-new-attacks-on-abortion-pills.html

USA – Why speech could be a target for the anti-abortion movement in 2025

The anti-abortion movement is looking at ways to control information about how and where to obtain abortions

Carter Sherman
Fri 27 Dec 2024

The next front in the US abortion wars may be what people are allowed to say about it.

More than two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, US abortions are on the rise, thanks in large part to the spread of abortion pills and travel across state lines. This has infuriated anti-abortion advocates, who have proposed policies to help the incoming Trump administration curtail the mailing of abortion pills and targeted individuals and groups that help women get out-of-state abortions. In a sign of how the issue is pitting states against one another, Texas earlier this month sued a New York-based doctor who allegedly provided a telehealth abortion to a Texan woman.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/27/speech-anti-abortion-movement

The Abortion Pill Underground

Since Roe was overturned, thousands of people in red states have found a way to get an abortion—often thanks to providers operating at the edge of the law.

AMY LITTLEFIELD
May 7, 2024

When Kay found out she was pregnant at the end of last year, she knew three things clearly. “I was poor and I had an unwanted pregnancy and knew I couldn’t afford a standard abortion for hundreds of dollars,” she told me. A 29-year-old student already raising one child, Kay lives in Texas, where abortion is banned. The nearest clinic she could find was at least a 12-hour drive away. But Kay thought there might be another option. “I went to Google and started searching if it was possible somehow to receive abortion pills through the Internet.”

It was not only possible; it was much easier and more affordable than Kay had expected. She found online services that offered to ship the same medications that were available in clinics right to her doorstep in Texas for $150 or, if she couldn’t afford that, for free. It seemed so simple that Kay thought it might be a scam. “I was scared I would wait for the pills and they wouldn’t work when I got them,” she said.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/telehealth-abortion-shield-laws/

07.05.2024