In the last few years, the biggest wave of anti-pregnancy and anti-abortion legislation in recent U.S. history has swept across the country. In 2025, lawmakers in at least 12 states, including Alabama and Oklahoma, introduced bills aimed at treating fetuses as individuals. This legislative trend should be of grave concern for women seeking abortions. Under some conditions, it would place them at risk of being charged with homicide.
The anti-abortion movement has a long history of trying to change the legal landscapes around pregnancy. The effort to give personhood status to fetuses is the crux of this agenda. These rapidly changing and restrictive laws have immense consequences for millions of women. Now, they have to fear the legal consequences of their reproductive choices. During the first two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, prosecutors across 16 states brought criminal charges against over 400 people for suspected pregnancy-related offenses. This trend is part of a broader disturbing criminalization of pregnancy, often targeting low-income women.
That’s why in 2023 we were horrified at what recently happened in South Lebanon, Ohio. A woman was charged with felony abuse of a corpse for miscarrying into a toilet. This incident serves as a terrifying example of the legal danger women could face under extreme fetal personhood laws.
Further complicating the landscape is former President Donald Trump’s controversial assertion that pregnant women who take Tylenol might increase their children’s risk of autism. Such statements, based in quackery and fiction, contribute to the fears and hysteria around fetal health and personhood. Dana Sussman, a top advocate for a national pregnancy discrimination law, described the hellish realities women face. Compounding these challenges is an environment of heightened public scrutiny and mistrust fueled by misinformation.
“It’s a perfect storm of all of the things that we work on: stigmatizing pregnant people for not being perfect pregnant people, blaming them for their perceived failures, and relying on misinformation and junk science to create a panic when there shouldn’t be one or isn’t one – while also increasing surveillance in the police state to monitor and potentially criminalize people when they don’t meet these impossible ideals,” – Dana Sussman.
The data Pregnancy Justice has gathered paints a very shocking picture of what’s happening in these prosecutions. In its inaugural year after the retreat of Roe v. Wade, the group documented 210 prosecutions for pregnancy outcomes. A deeper analysis shows that the vast majority of these cases happened in Southern states. These states tend to have laws that are equally or even more restrictive. Importantly, even among the accounted for cases, only 31 resulted in stillbirths or miscarriages, and almost 300 of these resulted in live births.
What’s particularly alarming is the scope of allegations against these women. Thousands of women were charged with child abuse, neglect, or endangerment. This is the result of a wider cultural impulse to punish women for anything they do wrong while pregnant. Even more alarmingly, in 16 cases, law enforcement charged these women with homicide. This was in large part when women just had abortion on their minds, such as ordering pills or asking about it on the internet.
It’s an exciting time, indeed, as Alabama and Oklahoma join forces to take the lead in the booming fetal personhood movement. Collectively, they’ve witnessed nearly 300 prosecutions connected to this. The concentrated enforcement of such laws raises questions about equity in the legal system and how socioeconomic status influences outcomes for pregnant women.
As this trend continues to grow, advocates like Spokane remind us that raising awareness and support for these women is crucial. Sussman stresses the unpredictable nature of policing pregnancy in this climate.
“What our work has proven is that, unfortunately, anything is possible when it comes to policing pregnancy,” – Dana Sussman.
Fetal personhood laws have broader effects than upon individual cases. They are part of a much larger trend on a societal level toward much more stringent and punitive control over women’s bodies and reproductive choices. Thousands of other pregnant women lived under the threat of criminal charges for making personal health decisions. This fear requires them to go through their pregnancies under a heavy, hostile, and confusing legal burden.