A Disturbing Advance in Fetal Personhood
The Cut, March 27, 2025
Imagine bleeding to the point of losing consciousness during a miscarriage. Then, after being treated by health-care providers, you are jailed for how you handled your medical emergency. That appears to be what happened on March 21, when police in Tifton, Georgia, arrested a 24-year-old woman who had lost her pregnancy at 19 weeks. They charged her with concealing the death of another person and abandonment of a dead body in a case that has alarmed reproductive-health experts and other advocates. “These charges are inappropriate, to say the least,” says Dana Sussman, senior vice-president of the legal-advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. Pregnancy criminalization has long been an issue in the U.S., but cases are becoming more commonplace. In the first year following the Dobbs decision, at least 210 people faced criminal charges in connection with their pregnancies – the most in a single year – and 22 of those cases involved miscarriages or stillbirths, according to a report by the organization. What’s unique about this case, she explains, is that authorities acknowledge the woman had a miscarriage but are asserting she did not properly dispose of the fetal remains. This seems to be the first time Georgia authorities have attempted to use a fetal-personhood law that has been on the books for six years to bring criminal charges, Sussman says. The measure includes a fetal-personhood component that defines an embryo or a fetus as a “natural person” with legal rights. Although state officials have said abortion seekers can’t be prosecuted, the attorney general’s office has refused to clarify whether people can be charged for other offenses connected with their pregnancies.
State Lawmakers Are Weighing Bills That Would Treat Abortion as Homicide
The 19th, April 7, 2025
Lawmakers in at least eight states are weighing bills that would treat abortion as a homicide, imposing criminal penalties on both providers and patients, once a Rubicon for the movement. The bills, filed in Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas, stem from the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, model legislation crafted by the Texas-based advocacy group the Foundation to Abolish Abortion. Three similar bills were introduced in Indiana, North Dakota and Oklahoma but failed to pass in committee or on the floor of the legislature. In addition to banning abortion, the bills, which argue that life begins at fertilization, could outlaw fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. No state abortion ban explicitly criminalizes pregnant people, and efforts to enact such a policy have consistently failed. Polling shows that most Americans support the right to abortion, and that they specifically oppose penalizing people who seek them. Still, the number of these homicide bills – last year, only three were introduced across the country, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights – suggests that abortion opponents are growing more receptive to directly punishing people who terminate their pregnancies.
The Alabama Case That Could Undo the Right To Travel Out of State for an Abortion
Slate, April 7, 2025
When the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, Justice Brett Kavanaugh took the time to reassure Americans that there would be no threat to the right to travel. If a state made it a crime to travel for abortion, Kavanaugh suggested, that would simply be unconstitutional. A major ruling from Alabama this week in a case called Yellowhammer Fund v. Attorney General is a reminder that states are finding more creative ways to limit abortion-related travel, and when a case on the subject ultimately reaches the Supreme Court, the question will be much more complicated than Kavanaugh wanted to believe.The case began shortly after Roewas reversed. Alabama quickly criminalized virtually all abortions in the state, and clinics there pivoted to expand other services. Then, Steve Marshall, the attorney general of Alabama, threatened to prosecute people and organizations who were helping abortion seekers travel out of state for abortion – which some of these organizations planned to do or had done in the past – even to places where the procedure was legal. Several health care providers and an abortion fund filed suit, seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction to establish that Marshall couldn’t constitutionally pursue that kind of prosecution.At the heart of the case is the right to travel. The plaintiffs argued that the right, one of the most venerable in our constitutional tradition, involves not only the right to move between states but also the ability to do what is lawful in another state. District Judge Myron Thompson, a Carter nominee, agreed with the plaintiffs, but it’s hard to predict whether conservative judges will reach the same result if Marshall appeals.
Texas Sues San Antonio Over Abortion Funding
The Texas Tribune, April 4, 2025
On Thursday night, a divided San Antonio City Council voted 6-5 to spend $100,000 on helping residents travel out of state to get abortions. Less than 24 hours later, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued in state court, arguing San Antonio is “transparently attempting to undermine and subvert Texas law and public policy.” The lawsuit alleges that the fund violates the gift clause of the Texas Constitution, and requests a temporary injunction blocking the funding allocation. The lawsuit is not unexpected: Paxton previously sued the City of Austin over a similar fund. San Antonio originally allocated $500,000 for a Reproductive Justice Fund in 2023, in response to Texas’ near-total ban on abortion. After much debate, and a private lawsuit, the money was spent on non-abortion related reproductive health initiatives, like contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections and health workshops. But this recent addition of $100,000 was narrowly approved to be spent specifically on abortion travel, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Some council members opposed the measure due to anti-abortion sentiment or a fear of being sued, while others said it was a necessary step to support people who were being harmed by the state’s abortion laws.
There Will Be No Winners in the Supreme Court’s Next Big Abortion Decision
Slate, April 4, 2025
The Supreme Court’s next big abortion decision might barely mention the word abortion. That was clear during oral argument in Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic v. Medina this week. In 2018, South Carolina’s Republican governor prohibited any provider that offers abortions from participating in the state’s Medicaid program. That order applied to Planned Parenthood—and by design. It also triggered litigation about a familiar question: whether part of the Medicaid statute allowing patients to choose their own qualified providers is actually enforceable in federal court. It was hard to get a read on which direction the justices were leaning on that question in this week’s oral argument. But whatever happens in Medina, the decades-long fight to defund Planned Parenthood will go full steam ahead. But it wasn’t clear if states could simply shut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid. The Medicaid statute includes a provision stating that any beneficiary “may obtain such assistance from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to perform the service or services required.” Beneficiaries argued that this provision gave them the right to pick any qualified provider, including Planned Parenthood, and to enforce that right in federal court. States like South Carolina responded that Congress didn’t intend to make the right to choose a qualified Medicaid provider enforceable in federal court—or at least, that the statute wasn’t clear about the subject.
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Note: The information contained in this publication reflects media coverage of women’s health issues and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Partnership for Women & Families.
