In late March, police in southern Georgia arrested a 24-year-old woman who had a miscarriage after a witness reported seeing her place the fetal remains in a dumpster. The coroner in Tift County determined it was a 19-week fetus from a naturally occurring miscarriage, but some legal experts consider the arrest a bellwether for the criminal suspicion that surrounds pregnancy loss in many states in post-Roe America.

The Marshall Project previously examined how the way a person handles a pregnancy loss — and where it occurs — can mean the difference between a private medical issue and a criminal charge.

Nationally, federal data shows that about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, but only a small number are investigated as crimes. In several states, a positive drug test after a pregnancy loss can result in criminal charges for the mother, and even prison time.

Prosecutions related to pregnancy appear to have increased since the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal rights of pregnant people. In the first year after the Dobbs decision — from June 2022 to June 2023 — there were at least 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions, researchers for the group found.

Here are some states where criminal suspicion surrounds pregnancy loss and miscarriages and stillbirths have been investigated by the criminal legal system in recent years:

Alabama

Alabama has a broad “chemical endangerment of a child” law allowing prosecutors to charge someone for drug use during any part of a pregnancy, whether the mother delivers a stillborn fetus or a healthy newborn.

Our 2022 investigation with AL.com found that more than 20 women had been prosecuted after a miscarriage or stillbirth in Alabama. Some of the harshest sentences resulted in cases where a fetus was stillborn and the woman went to trial.

Read the full article about miscarriages being investigated as crimes by Cary Aspinwall at The Marshall Project.