Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood

In Policing the Womb, Michele Goodwin explores how states abuse laws and infringe on rights to police women and their pregnancies. This book looks at the impact of these often arbitrary laws which can result in the punishment, incarceration, and humiliation of women, particularly poor women and women of color. Frequently based on unscientific claims of endangering a fetus, these laws allow extraordinary powers to state authorities over reproductive freedom and pregnancies. In this book, Michele Goodwin discusses real examples of women whose pregnancies have been controlled by the law and what has led to the United States being the deadliest country in the developed world for a woman to be pregnant.

• Offers a new lens to understand the state's policing of pregnant women's bodies
• Exposes the laws that undermine women's civil rights and the rise in these laws that seek to punish women during their pregnancies
• Brings to the forefront how racism in healthcare continues to harm women of color, including during pregnancy, and how a focus on the rights of middle-class white women has obscured the more deadly attacks on poor women and their reproductive health