by Beth M. Rauhaus, PhD, Deborah Sibila, PhD and Cameron Robin
Image of a pink stethoscope in the shape of a heart .
In June 2022, the overturning of Roe v. Wade ushered in a new era of states controlling decisions of women’s reproductive healthcare, which includes the highly debated issue of abortion rights and contraception. Governors, judges, legislators, healthcare providers, advocates, and interest groups have often provided mixed messages regarding a woman’s right to an abortion.
The mixed messages at the center of the debate have focused on the criminalization of medical decisions, reproductive health care, and often times, pregnancy outcomes. Governors have taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as other social media outlets to highlight state policy adoption, and in some cases, declare how their state legislation will criminalize the use of abortion drugs and protect women. While the height of the debate focuses on women’s reproductive rights, an underlying element of criminalization continues to frame the broader conversation.
In November 2024, PBS released an article entitled “After Roe, pregnant women face increased risk of criminal prosecution,” reporting that within the first year after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion, 210 women faced charges for behavior related to pregnancy, abortion, pregnancy loss, or birth. The surge of women being viewed and framed as criminals is not new.
In fact, during The War on Drugs, the incarceration rates of men and women increased; however, the rate of women incarcerated for drug crimes increased by 832% (Sibila & Yatsco 2019). Women seeking medical services to control their bodies were commonly labeled “deviant,” “disrespectable,” or even “criminal” under legal and cultural norms.
Current abortion bans risk creating a new category of “criminals”: women who seek abortions and those who help them, from friends and family members to healthcare providers. This mirrors the 19th-century arrests of early activists like Margaret Sanger, who was jailed for providing birth control under the Comstock laws. Just as efforts to control women’s reproductive choices once criminalized access to contraception, today’s restrictions use criminal law to revive that legacy, turning private medical decisions into public affairs.
These laws are not uniform across the United States. For instance, Texas’s S.B. 8 allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion, creating civil liability for friends, family members, or providers who support a woman’s choice. Idaho and Tennessee have gone further by criminalizing adults who help minors travel across state lines for abortions without parental consent. Such measures broaden the reach of state power beyond patients themselves, targeting entire support networks and amplifying the risks of prosecution for those who assist.
These restrictions also disproportionately harm poor women and women of color, who face greater barriers to healthcare access, fewer resources for out-of-state travel, and higher risks of criminal prosecution. Already more heavily policed and more likely to be reported by healthcare providers, these groups are especially vulnerable under laws that criminalize abortion. The bans also worsen existing health disparities—particularly maternal mortality rates among Black women (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2022)—and deepen cycles of poverty by forcing women to carry unwanted or medically risky pregnancies without safe options.
Looking forward, these laws may have profound effects on both women and the criminal justice system. By expanding the definition of criminal behavior to include private medical decisions, abortion bans risk straining courts, law enforcement, and prisons with cases rooted in reproductive healthcare. Women—especially poor women and women of color—are the most likely to be investigated and prosecuted, reinforcing systemic inequalities and deepening mistrust in legal institutions. Healthcare providers, too, face the erosion of medical privacy and the threat of criminal liability, which may deter them from offering essential care. In this way, current abortion laws set a troubling precedent for broader state control over women’s bodies, embedding reproductive healthcare within the punitive reach of the criminal justice system.
About the author:
Beth M. Rauhaus, Ph.D. is a Professor, the Moroux/BORSF Endowed Professor, and Department Head of Political Science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research and teaching focuses on gender representation in public policy and administration. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as Administrative Theory & Praxis, American Review of Public Administration, Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Affairs Education and Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs.
About the author:
Deborah A. Sibila, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Social Sciences at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. Her teaching and research interests include policing, drug policy, and immigrant and gender offending/victimization. She is currently a member of the Institute for Predictive Analytics in Criminal Justice and serves as the Title IX advisor and Faculty Ombuds at the university.
About the author:
Cameron Robin is an undergraduate student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette pursuing a BA in Political Science. He is a student worker for the Department of Political Science, a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, an inaugural mentor for the College of Liberal Arts Peer Mentorship program, and a member of the College of Liberal Arts’ Dean’s Student Advisory Council.