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Contact: media@pregnancyjusticeus.org

NEW YORK — Yesterday, Pregnancy Justice President Lourdes A. Rivera testified at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing “The Continued Assault on Reproductive Freedoms in a Post-Dobbs America,” where she spoke about the anti-abortion movement’s extreme fetal personhood agenda, which aims to grant rights to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses.

“The overall goal here is to establish fetal personhood under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution,” said Rivera at the hearing. “If you believe a fertilized egg is a person with the same rights as everyone in this room, then it endangers IVF, contraception, and medical care, including for people who are begging to have their health care needs met.”

Fetal personhood disproportionately targets and deprives poor people and people of color of their rights, including their right to liberty. When people’s pregnancy outcomes are punished, they and their families suffer irreparable harm. Pregnancy Justice has documented more than 1,800 criminal cases related to all pregnancy outcomes from the 1973 Roe decision to the June 2022 Dobbs decision that reversed Roe. The majority of these criminal arrests, nearly 1,400, occurred in the 16.5 years leading up to the Dobbs decision as fetal personhood gained traction in state law. Today, at least 11 states — Alabama included — have extremely broad personhood laws that could be interpreted to apply to all criminal and civil state laws. 

The hearing comes after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled this past month that frozen embryos are children, prompting IVF providers to stop providing care for fear of liability. Although a new state law purports to shield IVF doctors and patients from civil and criminal liability, questions remain. “What happens when someone else brings a challenge under the rationale of the [Alabama] Supreme Court and state constitution?” said Rivera. “The state legislature can do what it wants, but it has to comply with the state’s constitutional language, which includes the ‘sanctity of life.'”

Rivera testified alongside an Alabama IVF patient whose care was halted following the ruling and Texas OB-GYN Dr. Austin Dennard, who is among a group of women suing the state of Texas for denying them emergency abortion care.

The hearing also highlighted disparities in maternal mortality rates among Black and Latine women compared to white women. In addition, the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate compared to other high-income countries, and states with abortion bans rank among the worst for maternal mortality, infant mortality, and criminalization.

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Pregnancy Justice works to ensure that no one loses their rights because of their capacity for pregnancy or pregnancy outcome, focusing on people who are most at risk of state control and criminalization: those who are low-income, of color, or use drugs.