Imagine suffering a preterm labor home alone, bringing yourself and the baby to the nearest hospital, then losing your child.
Now imagine getting arrested and charged with murder for it.
In 2023, this nightmare scenario happened to a young woman in Pennsylvania. On her 21st birthday, she was arraigned, denied bail, and jailed while suffering the acute trauma of an obstetric emergency and profound grief.
Nothing can change the horrific experience this young woman was forced to endure, but I’m so glad to report that—after two years of advocacy—all charges have been dropped in this case.
Everyone at WLP wishes her healing as she recovers from this cruel abuse of government power.
We’re deeply grateful to her public defender, to Pregnancy Justice for their tireless work to end pregnancy criminalization nationwide, and to the many advocates and organizations who stood with us to stop this injustice.
Dozens of organizations, medical providers, legal scholars and academics joined the amicus brief we filed on behalf of the client. In our brief, we outlined the devastating public health consequences that arise from criminalizing miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death.
This outcome proves the power of community—including supporters like you—uniting to defend an unjustly arrested person. But it also exposes how readily authorities exploit their power to punish people for pregnancy complications.
We wish we could say this is a rare occurrence, but Pennsylvania has the highest rate of pregnancy-related arrests in the Northeast.
We’re currently preparing a new report analyzing pregnancy criminalization in Pennsylvania. If you’d like to be among the first to receive it, let us know here.
There is so much to fight, and we can’t do it without your support.
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