When miscarriage is a crime

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Support our nonprofit journalism]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     September 25, 2024 Yesterday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) [tried to get her Republican colleagues]( to recognize what should be a no-brainer: Abortion can be a critical, lifesaving form of health care. You might think this would be obvious, especially following the bombshell reports published by ProPublica last week about two women, [Amber Nicole Thurman]( and [Candi Miller](, who tragically died in Georgia in 2022 as a result of the state's abortion ban. But you would be mistaken: Those tragedies were not enough to convince Republicans to support Murray's resolution—which 40 Democrats co-sponsored—that [acknowledged]( "that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care." (This is also the essence of the argument Republicans were [fighting against]( at the Supreme Court, which ultimately punted the question of whether state abortion bans violate federal law in emergencies back to the lower courts.) In objecting to Murray's resolution, which blocked it from moving forward, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) made a litany of false claims, insisting the resolution wasn't needed and that abortion bans do not prohibit doctors from providing lifesaving care when needed. One of the lies that caught my attention was that abortion bans have not led to the criminalization of pregnant people who are not seeking abortions. "No state criminalizes miscarriage," Lankford said. But this is provably false. There was this story, just [published]( by CNN, about a woman in South Carolina who was charged with homicide after losing her pregnancy; there was [Brittany Watts' case](; and as my colleague Nina Martin [wrote in a new piece published this morning](, there are several other examples, according to data the legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice released yesterday. As Nina writes: The Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization “open[ed] the door to government intrusion into pregnancy in unprecedented ways,” Pregnancy Justice says, “throwing suspicion on pregnancy loss, particularly outside medical settings.” In the first year after Dobbs, at least 22 women around the US faced criminal prosecution after suffering miscarriages, stillbirths, or the death of babies born prematurely, the organization reports. The Dobbs decision didn’t just unleash a raft of laws restricting and banning abortion—it also seems to have made authorities more skeptical of women whose pregnancies end prematurely for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion. “Most of the time, we don’t know why a pregnancy or infant demise happened,” says Wendy Bach, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who co-authored the report. “But in this post-Dobbs era, pregnancy loss is extremely suspicious. It can lead to criminal investigation, criminal charges, incarceration, and family separation.” Check out [Nina's full piece]( to read more about this bleak new data and what it reveals about pregnancy criminalization post-Roe (though keep in mind, it was also a thing even under Roe, as I [wrote]( last year). In the meantime, there's a looming question on my mind: If two dead mothers are not enough to convince Republicans of the consequences of abortion bans, how many will it take? —Julianne McShane Advertisement [Share International]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Criminalizing Pregnancy: A Record Number of Women Were Prosecuted the Year After Dobbs]( They were targeted for substance use, miscarriages, and stillbirths, largely driven by fetal personhood laws. BY NINA MARTIN MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE   A HUGE OPPORTUNITY...ENDING SOON We need newsletter readers like you to help us make the most us a $50,000 digital matching gift, and time is running short. Only until midnight on Monday, [every donation you make]( will be matched dollar-for-dollar. You know the stakes right now. 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