More than 200 women faced criminal charges after pregnancy loss, abortion, or birth in the year after the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion, analysis has found.12The Pregnancy Justice organisation reported that at least 210 women faced criminal charges from 24 June 2022 (when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade) to 23 June 2023. The number is the highest since it began tracking the matter in 1973, but is likely an undercount.Most cases occurred in states that had laws recognising “fetal personhood,” the belief that life begins at conception and the embryo or fetus has full legal rights, which extend to “extrauterine children,” or frozen embryos.The greatest number of cases were in the southern states of Alabama (104 cases), Oklahoma (68 cases), and South Carolina (10 cases). Alabama and Oklahoma have almost complete abortion bans. South Carolina bans abortion after six weeks, when most women do…
