In 1964, becoming pregnant when you didn’t have a wedding ring on your left hand was about the worst thing that could happen to a girl. It happened to me, and when my boyfriend abandoned me and I had no supportive family who could help me, I ended up in one of the then ubiquitous unwed mothers’ homes.

Now, a young woman can become pregnant and end up in jail. Think I’m being extreme? Were you following the story of the young woman in Alabama who got shot in the belly, killing her unborn fetus? Marshae Jones was charged with manslaughter, because under Alabama law, a fetus is considered to have the same rights as a child who has already been born. A grand jury indicted Ms. Jones for initiating a fight with a co-worker who pulled out a gun and shot her, killing her fetus. The grand jury wanted to hold Ms. Jones accountable for the death of her fetus. They didn’t even charge the woman who shot her. Rather, they charged the gunshot victim, Ms. Jones for behavior leading to the death of her unborn child. Only after a national outcry did the District Attorney, Lynneice Washington, decide to dismiss the case.

Now, granted Ms. Jones acted unwisely to get into a physical fight with a co-worker. Likewise, the co-worker acted unwisely to pull out her gun and shoot Ms. Jones. However, this case illustrates the risks to pregnant women, married and unmarried, who may be seen to have in some way compromised the health or life of their fetuses.

Dorothy Roberts, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Killing The Black Body: Race, Reproduction, And The Meaning Of Liberty, spoke with NPR on June 30, 2019, about the increasing prosecutions of women for the unintentional death of fetuses that they are carrying.

She said: “It’s becoming more and more common since the late 1980s, early 1990s, when prosecutors began to charge women for crimes for using drugs during pregnancy. That has spread out to include prosecutions of women who commit all sorts of conduct during pregnancy that harms a fetus. It’s included attempting suicide. It’s included driving drunk. It’s included botching self-induced abortions. And many of us are saying it’s gotten to a point where pregnancy itself is being criminalized because so many things that someone does while pregnant can be the basis of a criminal prosecution.”

Ms. Roberts, who is African American, went on to say that these charges have been leveled much more commonly against women of color, many of them victims themselves of domestic violence and already disadvantaged by poverty and racial discrimination. She says that it was racism that led to the idea of treating a mother using drugs during pregnancy as a criminal and beginning to prosecute women for this, which leads to punishing women for having babies.

This adds another horrendous layer of discrimination against women of color. It also jeopardizes ALL pregnant women. I’ve told my granddaughter if she gets pregnant not to go to Alabama. What if she forgets to put on her seat belt and gets in an accident leading to her unborn child’s death? What if she is observed having a drink in a restaurant and turned in for child endangerment?

Actually, knowing my granddaughter, I don’t believe she’d do either of these things. But some woman somewhere will. Are we now returning to the days of punishing women for getting pregnant? We young women of the ’50’s and 60’s were punished with the removal of our babies into coerced adoptions. Now young pregnant women may land in court and serve time in jail.

Shades of The Handmaid’s Tale? I think so.