A growing number of women, especially women of color, are being sentenced to prison for the miscarriage deaths of their babies.
Priscilla Thompson and Alexandra Turcios Cruz of NBC News reported that “when Brittney Poolaw [who is Native American] was in an Oklahoma hospital last year having a miscarriage, she admitted to using methamphetamine during her pregnancy. Now, Poolaw, who was 19 at the time of her miscarriage, is in prison, sentenced to four years in October [2021] for manslaughter in the death of her fetus.”
According to Thompson and Turcios Cruz, “some advocates and medical professionals believe the verdict is a mistake, warning that the rising trend of women being prosecuted for actions during pregnancy is often based on faulty science and disproportionately affects low-income women and women of color.”
