Tell Congress: Stop Prosecutors From Weaponizing Pregnancy

A hospital should be a place to get help. No patient should have to walk through its doors afraid that seeking care could expose them to prosecution.

But new findings from Pregnancy Justice document at least 902 pregnancy-related prosecutions initiated between June 2022 and June 2025. These cases continue a decades-long practice of using criminal laws to police pregnancy. In 700 cases, records indicated that information was obtained or disclosed in a medical setting.

The finding shows how medical information can become entangled with prosecution. Patients should be able to seek treatment and speak honestly with their doctors without fearing that private health information will become evidence against them.

Tell Congress: Close the gaps in pregnancy privacy protections. Pass the SAFER Health Act and expand protections against disclosing medical information to prosecute patients for pregnancy outcomes or conduct during pregnancy.

This crackdown reaches far beyond abortion. Prosecutors have used child-abuse, neglect, and endangerment laws to pursue allegations about conduct during pregnancy. Some cases followed pregnancy loss. Most involved live births.

These prosecutions did not begin with Dobbs. But researchers explain that the decision weakened constitutional protection for reproductive autonomy and bolstered the fetal-personhood movement—the effort to give embryos and fetuses legal rights that can be used against pregnant patients.

HIPAA protects medical privacy, but it does not provide a blanket shield against pregnancy prosecutions. Its exceptions can allow records to reach investigators through court orders and legally authorized reporting, without the patient’s consent. That leaves a dangerous gap: information patients share to get medical help can become evidence used to prosecute them.

The SAFER Health Act would address part of that gap. It would generally prohibit HIPAA-covered entities and their business associates from disclosing abortion- or pregnancy-loss information in legal proceedings without the patient’s authorization, subject to limited exceptions. Those protections would override conflicting state laws.

But the bill’s protections must reach further. Congress must also protect medical information used to prosecute conduct during pregnancy, including pregnancies that end in live births.

Fear of prosecution can discourage people from seeking prenatal care or substance-use treatment. It can make patients afraid to disclose symptoms or tell a doctor they need help.

In 2025, a federal court struck down most of the Biden administration’s reproductive-health privacy rule. Congress must establish explicit protections in federal law.

Medical privacy legislation will not end every pregnancy prosecution. But Congress can close pathways that expose patients’ medical information to investigators.

Add your name: Demand that Congress close these gaps in pregnancy-related medical privacy. No one should have to choose between getting care and protecting their freedom.

The petition to Congress reads:

“Pass the SAFER Health Act and expand its protections to restrict disclosure by HIPAA-covered entities and their business associates of private medical information for prosecutions targeting patients’ pregnancy outcomes or conduct during pregnancy.”