Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood (Reproductive Justice: A New Vision for the 21st Century)

by Grace E. Howard

Decades before the overturning of Roe v. Wade , pregnant people faced arrest and prosecution for supposed crimes against the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses they gestated. T he Pregnancy Police  investigates the legal arguments undergirding these prosecutions and sheds much-needed light on the networks of healthcare providers, social workers, and legal personnel participating in this ongoing surveillance and punishment of pregnant people.

Drawing on detailed analyses of legislation, statements from prosecutors and law enforcement, and records from over a thousand arrest cases, Grace E. Howard traces the long history of state attempts to regulate and control people with the capacity for pregnancy—from the early twentieth century's white supremacist eugenics to the end of Roe and the ever-increasing criminalization of abortion across the United States. 
 

Genres: History

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. Devastating in so many ways, but the depth of the research and the analysis is brilliant. A must-read for anyone interested in reproductive health, rights, and justice.

[Evelyn Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood by Grace E. Howard is a groundbreaking and unflinching examination of how the criminal justice system has long targeted pregnant people not as individuals deserving care and autonomy, but as vessels subject to surveillance, judgment, and control.

Through meticulous research and powerful storytelling, Howard exposes the legal, political, and racial machinery that underpins the criminalization of pregnancy in America. Her work is both historical and startlingly current tracing the evolution from early eugenics ideologies to the modern post–Roe v. Wade landscape, where personhood laws and prosecutorial zeal continue to threaten reproductive freedom.

What makes this book truly exceptional is its balance of scholarly rigor and moral clarity. Howard doesn’t just present facts; she contextualizes them within systems of power that silence the most vulnerable. The book is as much a legal study as it is a call to conscience one that demands we reexamine what justice means when bodily autonomy becomes a crime.

Essential reading for policymakers, healthcare professionals, legal scholars, and anyone seeking to understand the intersection of gender, race, and criminalization, Pregnancy Police is a defining work in the growing canon of reproductive justice literature.

It is not only an academic achievement it is a public service.

[Maggie Scotece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible dive into the history and growth of policing and criminalizing pregnancy with a look to how the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson opens up a new chapter in rising criminalization. This book broke my heart open and enraged me as it connects the dots which have created our current system of pregnancy surveillance.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a phenomenal deep dive into the history of criminalizing people with the capacity for pregnancy. It’s plenty upsetting, but also a must-read for anyone who cares about achieving true reproductive freedom in the country.