COLUMBIA — South Carolina charged at least 381 women with crimes related to their pregnancy over the past three years, far more than any other state, a national advocacy nonprofit found in a report released this week.
While the report focused on the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling on abortion, almost all of the cases documented in South Carolina involved allegations of drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy, not an abortion, the Pregnancy Justice report found.
The 381 women charged in South Carolina represent more than one-third of the 902 cases researchers found nationwide. Oklahoma ranks second with 222 cases.
The true nationwide total is almost certainly higher, the national advocacy group said. The report is a precursor to a more complete study set for release in 2028, so the numbers will likely continue to rise as researchers discover more cases, said Wendy Bach, who co-led the study.
South Carolina stands out partly because court information was easier to access here, she said.
Substance abuse and abortion laws
U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to an abortion overturned a nearly half-century precedent established by Roe v. Wade and returned the legality of abortions to states to decide, resulting in a hodgepodge of laws nationwide.
In South Carolina, most abortions are illegal after six weeks of pregnancy under a law that took effect with a state Supreme Court ruling in August 2023. In pregnancies due to rape or incest, abortions are legal through the 12th week. Other exceptions to the ban are medical complications that threaten the pregnant woman’s life or anomalies in the fetus so severe they’re unsurvivable after birth.
That law specifically prohibits prosecuting women for seeking or getting abortions.
South Carolina’s high number of cases is likely the result of a nearly 30-year-old court ruling, said Bach, who is also a law professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
In 1997, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled a fetus counts as a child, allowing prosecutors to charge pregnant women under child abuse laws. The two other states with similar rulings, Oklahoma and Alabama, had the second- and third-highest numbers of cases.
While other states have used those charges as well, the numbers are higher in places with court precedent “because it’s been explicitly blessed by the Supreme Court as a legal theory that you can use to prosecute someone,” said Madalyn Wasilczuk, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina who co-led the study.
“What really strikes me is how normalized these kinds of prosecutions have become in our state,” Wasilczuk said.
Nationwide, most of the charges found by researchers involved women using drugs and alcohol during pregnancy. That was true in South Carolina as well, where 377 of 381 cases involved substance abuse, though some may have involved other charges as well, according to the nonprofit.
Thirteen of the 902 cases documented across the country stem directly from getting or trying to get an abortion. The nonprofit declined to say how many, if any, of those 13 women were South Carolinians, citing concerns about identifying them.
Data questions
The difficulty in tracking down data in other states likely contributed to South Carolina’s lopsided total, Bach said.
In the Palmetto State, researchers were able to get county-by-county breakdowns of charges involving pregnancy. Getting similar data from court systems in other states was much more difficult. Researchers relied instead on news reports and tips from advocates, Bach said.
If direct comparisons were possible, South Carolina would likely still be among the nation’s highest for pregnancy-related charges due to the legal precedent, Bach and Wasilczuk said.
How much the true numbers differ is unclear.
“I think we both believe that there are more cases in South Carolina than in some other states, but also, we know that there are states that we just can’t get data for,” Wasilczuk said.
The data collection methods also left some questions in the report’s findings.
The numbers aren’t comparable to previous studies from the nonprofit because researchers used different methods, which produced different results, Bach said. That means the data can’t show whether the number of cases increased over previous years.
And researchers didn’t track the outcomes of cases, making it impossible to say how many women were actually found guilty of the charges or sent to prison.
Takeaways
The report’s findings point to “an increasing dedication to the idea that the fetus can be the victim of a crime that the pregnant individual commits,” Bach said.
“So, the body of the pregnant person can be a crime scene, and the fetus is the victim of that crime,” she said.
The report found 70 cases nationwide involving the loss of a fetus, whether through an abortion or a miscarriage, Bach said. That seems to be on the rise after the Dobbs decision, likely because of anti-abortion laws, she said.
“The level of suspicion and criminal investigation of pregnancy loss that is happening across the nation after Dobbs is striking and disturbing,” Bach said.
One prominent case involving a pregnancy loss came out of South Carolina. In 2023, before the state’s abortion ban took effect, a college junior was charged with homicide by child abuse after unexpectedly giving premature birth in the toilet of her apartment.
A grand jury later declined to indict her, clearing her of the charges. The charges came from the woman leaving the baby in the toilet, not the premature birth itself, KFF Health News reported.
When prosecutors charge pregnant women under child abuse laws, they are usually trying to protect children and families, Bach said. But criminal charges might do the opposite, she said.
A pregnant woman struggling with addiction who hears she could lose custody of her baby or get sent to prison probably won’t tell a doctor she needs help, Bach said.
In 360 of South Carolina’s reported 381 cases, court filings suggest evidence came directly from doctors and nurses, who are mandated to report crimes, Bach said. At the same time, though, that could erode trust between a woman who needs help and the doctor who could provide it, she said.
“They know, ‘If I am struggling with substance use disorder and I am pregnant, and I go to my doctor, and I tell them that, these guys are going to hand that information over to the family policing system, and/or to the cops,’” Bach said. “Why would anyone in their right mind seek care?”
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
A Related Article here.
A record number of women are running for state legislatures this year
BY KEVIN HARDY - OCTOBER 23, 2026 8:50 AM
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats.
Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle.
Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
While some election cycles have seen spikes in the numbers of women running, the long-term trend has been defined by incremental progress, said Debbie Walsh, director of the research center.
“It is a step towards change, but it’s not going to happen in any one cycle,” she said. “Our system is set up in many ways for this kind of slow, steady progress.”
And she noted that Republicans still lag significantly. Of the women nominated this cycle, 68% are Democrats. Currently, about 64% of the women in state legislatures are Democrats.
“If the goal is for there to be gender equity in these legislatures, it’s not going to happen by only electing Democratic women. The Republican Party has to do more,” she said. “For women to be exercising political power, they need to be there on both sides of the aisle.”
Across the political spectrum, research shows lower levels of political ambition among women. Women tend to underestimate their own qualifications, are more averse to competition and receive less recruitment and encouragement to run for office. Many women work full-time and are primary caregivers — adding more complexity in the majority of states with part-time legislatures.
But Republicans face unique challenges: Experts say playing political defense this year, a lack of organizational support for GOP women and a rejection of identity-politics has hampered efforts to recruit conservative women.
Still, the number of women serving in legislatures has increased nearly 40% over the past decade, according to government relations firm MultiState. But representation varies wildly: Women hold more than half of seats in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, but fewer than 15% of seats in West Virginia, South Carolina and Mississippi.
In many ways, this cycle resembles the 2018 elections — when a wave of women ran for state and federal offices during President Donald Trump’s first midterm election. Like that year, the political climate again has soured for Republicans, who could lose control of Congress and hundreds of state legislative seats.
‘Women are just really sick and tired’
Midterm elections typically favor the party that doesn’t control the White House. And the current focus on affordability offers an extra boost for women candidates, said Republican pollster and consultant Amanda Iovino.
Polling has shown men tend to think of the economy in terms of income — wages, jobs growth and investment performance, she said. Women, though, have long framed discussions in terms of costs focusing on household budgets and grocery expenses.
“When cost of living is the top issue, and not the economy more broadly, it’s going to favor the people who instinctively talk to the cost side of the equation,” she said. “Of course, you can teach male candidates how to talk that way. I think it just comes a little bit more naturally to the women candidates.”
Former teacher Stefanie Bord, who is running for the Texas state House, said women are able to speak to those issues more credibly than many other politicians.
“Women are sort of like on the front lines of managing their homes and their families, and like the regular everyday life that needs to get done,” she said. “And they see firsthand the problems that happen because of laws that are passed without women involved.”
A Democrat, Bord found her way into politics after volunteering with the gun control group Moms Demand Action.
She said women have become even more interested in running for office since the Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade that had guaranteed the federal right to abortion.
“I think women are just really sick and tired,” she said, “especially in Texas, where you know my two daughters have less rights than I had.”
Bord is running in a predominantly conservative district in the Houston area. She faces Stan Stanart, the previous Harris County Clerk who enjoys support from GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.
Though it’s an uphill battle, she said the district could flip this cycle.
Her campaign is being supported by The First Ask, a political action committee working to elect pro-choice Democratic women to statehouses across the country. That group supports first-time candidates by investing early in campaign organization and staffing support.
Executive Director Caroline Welles said she wants to help build lasting political infrastructure to identify and support a pipeline of women running for office every cycle — not just spikes during times of political upheaval.
She pointed to Nevada, which made history in 2018 by becoming the first state to elect women to a majority of legislative seats. Women have maintained a majority since, now holding about 62% of seats.
“What we’re hoping to do is make this something like a Nevada where women keep winning,” she said.
She said women are more likely to get legislation passed, compromise with opponents and focus policymaking that benefits families. While her organization is solely focused on the left, she said she welcomes more Republican women running for legislatures, too.
“I wouldn’t see it as a loss if a large number of Republican women were encouraged to run, encouraged to to take up leadership roles. I would see that ultimately as a good thing because I do think they prioritize better legislation than their male counterparts.”
Republicans say they are investing in recruiting women.
In 2021, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect conservatives to state legislatures, redoubled a longstanding effort to recruit and train women candidates. This year, its Right Leaders Network included a class of 67 women running for legislatures in a dozen states.
Officials with that organization were unavailable for an interview.
Iovino, the Republican pollster, said this year’s tough political climate has likely hampered Republican recruitment efforts.
“If they’re sitting here defending a supermajority, then they’re not necessarily going out and recruiting a new batch of women and minority and veteran candidates,” she said.
But she believes Republican organizations will redouble efforts to recruit women in upcoming election cycles.
In 2020, a record number of Republican women ran for Congress and 2022 set a record for Republican women serving in state legislatures.
“I look back to our trends in 2020 and 2022, and look forward to that next batch of women, especially in state legislatures and kind of refilling that pipeline,” Iovino said.
What women bring to public office
This year, women in Georgia are more politically engaged than during Trump’s first term, said Melita Easters, executive director of Georgia WIN List, a political action committee working to elect pro-choice women to the legislature.
A record 127 women are running for legislative seats in Georgia. The organization has endorsed 76 of those candidates. Plenty of those races are considered long shots, but Easters said getting women onto the legislative ballot can be an accomplishment in its own right — especially in the South, where representation lags other parts of the country.
“When you have a woman who is running against a Republican incumbent for the first time in a decade, and that Republican hasn’t had a Democrat run against him in more than 10 years, then she attracts some attention,” Easter said. “She attracts some voters who had given up on having a candidate they could vote for, and so that rising tide lifts the rest of the ticket, too.”
Aside from increasing levels of representation, Easters said women bring a different perspective to politics. While many men run to gain power or financial advantage, she pointed to research showing women tend to run with more altruistic motivations focused on public service.
“Women bring a different skill set to holding public office, a skill set that is more collaborative,” she said. “And last but not least, women have generations of experience in cleaning up men’s messes, and the current political landscape is a very messy place.”
Research consistently shows lower political ambition among women. Experts say that means many women only launch a campaign after being specifically recruited.
“It took three asks for me to raise my hand and say, ‘Okay, I’ll do it,’” said Democrat Michelle Schreiner, who is running for the Georgia House. “I had, frankly, some terms and conditions and that is really needing support early and often.”
Schreiner, a psychologist and researcher, is challenging Republican Rep. Sharon Cooper, who has represented suburban Atlanta in the state House for 29 years. Cooper did not respond to Stateline requests for comment.
To run was “a sobering decision,” Schreiner said. It has meant working on her birthday, missing her daughter’s soccer games and her son’s baseball games.
“It has a real impact on families,” she said. “My decision to run is not merely to challenge the incumbent. My decision to run is fundamentally an act of gratitude and appreciation for my community, and saying I’m willing to step up to do the work if you’re wanting a choice.”
Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.
Kevin Hardy covers business, labor and rural issues for Stateline from the Midwest.
