Since the Supreme Court of the United States Dobbs v. Women’s Health Jackson The ruling ended the federal right to abortion in 2022, and far-right activists and politicians have intensified their fight for fetal personhood policies. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years following the decision, the number of people facing criminal charges related to their pregnancy reached its highest level in U.S. history.
Shoemaker’s case began earlier, in 2017, when she experienced a stillbirth at home about 24 to 26 weeks into her pregnancy. Paramedics brought her to the hospital where she revealed she had used methamphetamine while pregnant. Although the medical examiner was unable to determine whether drug use had caused the stillbirth — and according to Pregnancy Justice, “her placenta showed clear signs of infection” — the jury found her guilty of chemical endangerment of a minor. She has served five years of her 18-year sentence.
“After becoming Ms. Shoemaker’s attorney in 2024, Pregnancy Justice filed a petition alongside Andrew Stanley of the Samford law firm requesting a hearing based on new evidence about the infection that led to Ms. Shoemaker’s pregnancy fatality, prompting the judge to agree with Pregnancy Justice’s medical witness and vacate the conviction,” the rights group said in a statement Monday.
“Had the facts been known and presented to the jury, the results likely would have been different,” Lee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Tikal wrote in his Dec. 22 order.
Shoemaker said Monday that “after years of fighting, I am grateful that I have finally been heard, and I pray that I will spend next Christmas at home with my children and my parents… I hope my new trial ends with my release, simply because I lost my pregnancy at home to an infection. I loved my child and wanted my child, and I never deserved that.”
Although Tikal’s decision came three days before Christmas, the 45-year-old Mother of four He remained behind bars throughout last weekend, as the state had requested.
“While we are thrilled with the judge’s decision, we are outraged that Ms. Shoemaker remains behind bars when she should have been home for Christmas,” said Emma Roth, a former senior pregnancy judge. “She was convicted on the basis of feelings, not facts. Pregnancy Justice will continue to fight on appeal and prove that pregnancies end tragically for reasons beyond the mother’s control. Women like Ms. Shoemaker should be allowed to grieve their loss without fear of arrest.”
AL.com I mentioned Tuesday that “Alabama is unique in that it is one of only three states, along with Oklahoma and South Carolina, where the state Supreme Court allows criminal statutes intended to punish child abuse or child endangerment to be applied in the context of pregnancy.”
However, similar cases are not limited to these countries. Pregnancy justice Found That’s in the next two years Dobbs“Plaintiffs have commenced cases in 16 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. While lawsuits have been filed in all of these states, to date, the majority of reported cases have occurred in Alabama (192) and Oklahoma (112).”
“Prosecutors used a variety of criminal laws to charge defendants in these cases, often bringing more than one count against a single defendant,” the group’s report continues. “In total, the 412,441 defendants faced charges of conduct related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or childbirth. The majority of charges (398/441) asserted some form of child abuse, neglect, or child endangerment.”
“As has been the case for decades, almost all cases alleged that the pregnant woman used a substance during pregnancy,” the report adds. “In 268 cases, drug use was the only allegation against the pregnant woman. In the midst of a widespread crisis in maternal health care and despite the failure of maternal health care across the country, prosecutors or police said that pregnant women’s failure to obtain prenatal care was evidence of a crime. This was the case in 29 out of 412 cases.”
When the circular was issued last year, Pregnancy Justice President Lourdes A. Rivera said in a statement that “the report Dobbs The decision encouraged prosecutors to develop more aggressive strategies for prosecuting pregnancy, resulting in the most pregnancy-related criminal cases recorded.
“This is directly related to the extreme legal principle of ‘fetal personhood,’ which grants full legal rights to the fetus or fetus, turning them into victims of crimes committed by pregnant women,” Rivera said. “To shift criminalization, we need to decouple health care from the criminal legal system and change policies and practices to ensure pregnant women can access the health care they need safely, without fear of criminalization. This report shows that in the post-war era,Dobbs “In America, pregnancy puts people at increased risk, not only of serious health outcomes, but also of arrest.”
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