Focusing on the criminalization of pregnancy, the book provides a profound analysis of societal surveillance and judgment faced by pregnant individuals. Grace Howard highlights how systemic forces dehumanize those with uteruses, revealing the pervasive nature of the "pregnancy police." In light of recent legal changes, the work is positioned as essential reading for understanding the implications of reproductive justice, making it a vital contribution to contemporary discussions on the topic.
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. The 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 who have 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.