From Pregnancy Justice:
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 June 24, 2022 to June 23, 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, along with other reporters and researchers, has 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.
Continue reading the report here.
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