Abortion Rights Research Paper

Over the last twenty years, thirty-two states in America have adopted fetal homicide laws in hopes to protect the mother and her unborn fetus from any unjust harm. While many of these states enacted these laws to provide protection to the mother and fetus from a third party, they have been used to prosecute mothers for various reasons. In Iowa, a pregnant woman fell down a flight of stairs and was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide” (New York Times). In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins, one of which was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean, she was arrested on charges of fetal homicide
Yet, there are still twelve states that have no legal protection for a mother. There are serious consequences if the Reproductive Rights of women are not explicitly outlined. Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is fifteen to twenty percent, in addition, it is often impossible to conclude what caused the miscarriage. As detailed by Andrew Murphy in his article for the Indiana Law Journal, the criminal justice system would find difficulties in determining “whether a miscarriage is the result of a specific action by a pregnant woman that is worthy of criminal penalty”. He goes on to express how traumatic a miscarriage is for many women and how “prosecuting a pregnant woman [because she] allegedly caused her own miscarriage runs a substantial risk of punishing her for an act outside her