--- title: Some States Consider Bills That Punish Abortion Patients description: Lawmakers in several states have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide. canonical: https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/ author: Chantelle Lee article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-03-18T20:28:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:12:32.275Z article:section: Politics og:title: Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish Abortion Patients og:description: Some lawamkers have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide. og:url: https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d7d7426d03d7672/6998c501f1b08213256f1295/Bills-Criminalizing-Abortion.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-RIGHTS-ABORTION-DEMONSTRATION og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish Abortion Patients twitter:description: Some lawamkers have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d7d7426d03d7672/6998c501f1b08213256f1295/Bills-Criminalizing-Abortion.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish People Seeking Abortions > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Mar 18, 2025 8:28 PM UTC  Activists rally outside the State Capitol in support of abortion rights, as part of a national day of action calling for safe and legal access to abortion, in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 14, 2022. Activists rally outside the State Capitol in support of abortion rights, as part of a national day of action calling for safe and legal access to abortion, in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 14, 2022.Elijah Nouvelage—AFP/Getty Images by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Mar 18, 2025 8:28 PM UTC Abortion rights advocates are closely following what they call a growing and alarming trend: lawmakers in several states have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide. Such bills have been introduced in at least 10 states for the 2025 legislative session: [Georgia](https://legiscan.com/GA/bill/HB441/2025), [Idaho](https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1822431), [Indiana](https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2025/bills/house/1334/details), [Iowa](https://legiscan.com/IA/text/HF453/id/3127569), [Kentucky](https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/25rs/hb523.html), [Missouri](https://house.mo.gov/bill.aspx?bill=HB1072&year=2025&code=R), [North Dakota](https://legiscan.com/ND/bill/HB1373/2025), [Oklahoma](https://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=SB456&Session=2500), [South Carolina](https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess126%5F2025-2026/bills/3537.htm), and [Texas](https://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB2197), according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is tracking these proposals. Most of those states have already banned abortion either in nearly all circumstances or after six weeks of pregnancy. ([Missouri](https://time.com/7173410/abortion-ballot-results-2024-election/) and [North Dakota](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/us/north-dakota-abortion-ban-overturned.html) are the only exceptions; both of them previously had near-total abortion bans that have since been overturned.) The bills refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn child” or “preborn child.” They claim that an embryo or fetus can be a homicide victim, opening the door for authorities to charge and prosecute people who seek abortions. Some of the bills also propose removing clauses from state laws that protected pregnant people seeking abortions from prosecution. The bills include limited exceptions, [such as](https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1822431) in a situation resulting in “the unintentional death of a preborn child” after “life-saving procedures to save the life of a mother when accompanied by reasonable steps, if available, to save the life of her preborn child.” Lizzy Hinkley, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, says she believes there has been an uptick in the number of these bills that have been introduced this year, which is “very, very alarming.” Hinkley points out that many of the states considering these bills, such as South Carolina, [allow for the death penalty](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state). “It’s very much right out of the anti-abortion playbook to be introducing bills that try to control, try to oppress, and punish pregnant people,” she says. Three of these bills—in [Indiana](https://www.wboi.org/2025-03-03/further-restrictions-for-indianas-near-total-abortion-ban-died-advocates-remain-concerned), [North Dakota](https://apnews.com/article/abortion-punishing-women-tracking-pregnancy-6f809d3a519ff28dedd9a1d05b4c8a62), and [Oklahoma](https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/02/24/oklahoma-lawmakers-reject-giving-women-death-penalty-abortion-abolitionists-vow-fight-isnt-over/)—have since failed to advance. And Mary Ziegler—a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law with expertise in abortion—says the likelihood of the remaining bills passing is “relatively low.” These types of proposals are generally unpopular; Ziegler says that even conservatives and anti-abortion activists are divided on whether to penalize people seeking abortions. “Having said that, I think \[these bills are\] more likely to pass now than they were in previous years, and the fact that they keep coming back is significant,” Ziegler says. She adds that more of these bills have been introduced since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in [_Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization_](https://time.com/6189476/abortion-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/)_,_ which ended the constitutional right to abortion. Typically, anti-abortion laws penalize medical providers offering abortion care. On March 17, the Texas attorney general announced that a midwife in the state had been [arrested](https://apnews.com/article/texas-illegal-abortion-charge-2ffba72c1d547afa87607bd0a3c32b92) on charges of illegally providing abortions—the first time Texas officials have brought these kinds of charges forward since the _Dobbs_ ruling. Separately, a New York-based doctor is [facing](https://time.com/7261130/what-are-abortion-shield-laws/) a civil suit in Texas and criminal charges in Louisiana for allegedly prescribing, via telemedicine, abortion pills to patients in those states. **Read More:** [_What Are Abortion Shield Laws?_](https://time.com/7261130/what-are-abortion-shield-laws/) The recent criminalization bills also include fetal personhood rhetoric—a legal doctrine [at the forefront of the fight over reproductive rights](https://time.com/6191886/fetal-personhood-laws-roe-abortion/) that aims to give an embryo and fetus the legal rights of people. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an [Executive Order](https://time.com/7210389/donald-trump-executive-order-sex-gender-id/) declaring that the U.S. government will only recognize “two sexes, male and female.” Abortion rights advocates [sounded the alarm](https://time.com/7260062/trump-first-month-abortion-reproductive-rights/), saying that [the order contains fetal personhood language](https://time.com/7210539/trumps-executive-order-gender-abortion-rights/) because it claims that sex is assigned “at conception.” Hinkley says that research has already found that pregnancy criminalization has been on the rise since the _Dobbs_ decision. Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit committed to protecting the rights of pregnant people, released a report in September, which [found](https://time.com/7024133/pregnancy-criminalization-post-dobbs/) that at least 210 pregnant people faced criminal charges for “conduct associated” with pregnancy in the year following the _Dobbs_ ruling—the highest number recorded in one year. Hinkley says that report “portended what we’re seeing right now.” “It doesn’t matter if \[the bills\] pass this year; they’ll be back next year,” Hinkley says. “There was a point not that long ago when it would seem absurd to have a total abortion ban without exceptions for rape and incest, or a total abortion ban, period, without exceptions to save a pregnant person’s health, and that is the reality that pregnant people are living in across the country right now. So whether it’s this year or next year or a few years down the road, this is a very harrowing indication of what the end game is for anti-abortion legislators and anti-abortion activists.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/"},"headline":"Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish People Seeking Abortions","datePublished":"2025-03-18T20:28:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T00:12:32.275Z","description":"Lawmakers in several states have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide.","url":"https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/","keywords":["abortion","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d7d7426d03d7672/6998c501f1b08213256f1295/Bills-Criminalizing-Abortion.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chantelle Lee","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d7d7426d03d7672/6998c501f1b08213256f1295/Bills-Criminalizing-Abortion.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-RIGHTS-ABORTION-DEMONSTRATION","caption":"US-POLITICS-RIGHTS-ABORTION-DEMONSTRATION","creditText":"Elijah Nouvelage—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/abortion/","name":"abortion"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7269263/bills-punishing-people-seeking-abortions/","name":"Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish People Seeking Abortions"}}]}] ```