Alabama Woman Has Spent Five Years in Prison...for a Stillbirth

1.7.26

- Kentucky Drops Fetal Homicide Charges—Other Charges Remain

- Decriminalization Bill Introduced in Kentucky

- South Dakota is Being Sued for Abortion Censorship

- In the States: Wyoming, Missouri, Colorado, Ohio, and More

- No, Republicans Are Not Debating ‘Hyde’

- What’s On the Horizon

- Alabama Woman Spent Five Years in Prison for Stillbirth

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Kentucky Drops Fetal Homicide Charges—Other Charges Remain

We have some good news about Melinda Spencer’s case in Kentucky. As you know, the 35-year-old was arrested on multiple charges—including fetal homicide—for allegedly ending her pregnancy with abortion pills. Read our past coverage here and here.

As Abortion, Every Day noted yesterday, the state is not supposed to be able to charge pregnant women over ending their own pregnancies. Kentucky’s abortion ban doesn’t allow for the prosecution of women, and there’s a specific carve-out protecting pregnant women in the fetal homicide statute, as well.

That’s why we’re glad to see that prosecutor Miranda King has dropped that charge today, noting in a court filing that the law “unambiguously exempts the defendant, the infant’s mother.”

But don’t get too excited—King almost seems disappointed she couldn’t move forward with the fetal homicide charge:

“I sought this job with the intention of being a pro-life prosecutor but must do so within the boundaries allowed by the Kentucky State law I’m sworn to defend. I will prosecute the remaining lawful charges fully and fairly.”

Those other charges include abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

We also have some notable new information thanks to reporting by the Lexington Herald-Leader: Kentucky State Police Master Trooper Michael Haney told the outlet that the charges were a result of a consultation between police and King. In other words, this wasn’t an error. It makes us wonder if prosecutors thought they’d be able to push through with the fetal homicide charge without anyone noticing.

Haney also made some time to bash Spencer, telling the paper that she “took it upon herself to get online and order the medication without any consultation with medical professionals.” Charming.

We’ll have more for you on the case soon, including how you can help. In the meantime, read about how Democratic lawmakers are reacting to Spencer’s arrest:

Decriminalization Bill Introduced in Kentucky

This is the exact right response to pregnancy-related arrests: House Democratic Caucus Chair Lindsey Burke has introduced a bill that would shield Kentucky women from criminalization if they seek out abortion care.

House Bill 23 would prohibit criminal or civil charges related to ending a pregnancy out-of-state, or using abortion medication shipped from out-of-state. (Kentucky’s ban already supposedly prohibits criminal charges against abortion patients, but we see how well that is going.) The legislation would also shield private medical records from being used in abortion-related investigations.

Here’s the part Republicans really won’t like: HB 23 would also protect abortion providers and ‘helpers’—like abortion funds—who help people get out-of-state abortions or abortion medication (provided the pills are obtained outside of Kentucky).

In a moment when Republican legislators across the country are introducing increasingly radical bills to punish anyone who helps abortion patients, Burke’s legislation takes a necessary broad approach: it would protect everyone from those who lend an abortion patient money and help with travel arrangements, to those who disseminate information about abortion. (As you’ll see in the next section, that protection for pro-choice speech is depressingly needed.)

But as more cases like Spencer’s pop up across the nation, it’s protection for women that’s most important. From Burke:

“When people are afraid of prosecution, they don’t stop needing health care—they just stop asking questions. That fear can push women into riskier and less informed decisions, delay care during medical emergencies, or prevent them from seeking help at all. That is how women’s health outcomes worsen, not improve.”

We’re in desperate need of more proactive legislation, so I’m grateful to lawmakers who are rising to the occasion. It’s not just Burke: last year in Wisconsin, Sen. Kelda Roys introduced a first-of-its-kind decriminalization bill. So please, let’s thank the state lawmakers who make this kind of legislation a priority—and push everyone else to do the same.

South Dakota is Being Sued for Abortion Censorship

Love this: After being attacked by South Dakota Republicans for a pro-choice ad campaign, Mayday Health is fighting back. The abortion rights group is suing Attorney General Marty Jackley, accusing the Republican of violating their free speech rights in service of his own anti-abortion “animus.”

The suit, which you can read here, notes that “the First Amendment shields Mayday from this bad-faith retaliation transparently intended to chill its speech and score political points.”

“The Attorney General may not punish Mayday for publishing truthful information on a public issue including information about legal abortion services in jurisdictions that have made abortion illegal.”

For those who need a refresher: Mayday put up innocuous ads at South Dakota gas stations that simply read, “Pregnant? Don’t want to be?,” along with the group’s website. Jackley claimed the group was violating the state’s deceptive trade practices law—arguing abortion pills are dangerous—and asked a court to force Mayday to remove their ads.

But as Mayday executive director Liv Raisner says, “Information is not illegal.”

The suit asks the court to stop Jackley’s attack, and to declare that Mayday and its ads are protected by the First Amendment.

In the States: Wyoming, Missouri, Colorado, Ohio, and More

Before we get into the tougher state news, just another quick congratulations to Wyoming abortion providers and advocates—who had a huge victory yesterday.

Dr. Giovannina M. Anthony, an OBGYN and one of the plaintiffs in the case, told Abortion, Every Day that “the reproductive justice movement needed a win like this in a big red state.” She also noted how important it is that the court asserted, plainly, that abortion is healthcare:

“The justices took the health risks of full term pregnancy, including mental health very seriously. The state argued that abortion care is not healthcare, and provided zero evidence. And of course this is because there is no evidence! The opinion is crystal clear and reflects the justices’ respect for the state constitution. Wyoming women have no interest in the government telling them what to do with their bodies.”

Let’s move on to Missouri, where we have less terrific news: a Planned Parenthood facility is shuttering its brick-and-mortar clinic, and will transition to all telehealth services. The Rolla clinic will now only provide care online, and will refer patients to other locations for in-person services. The organization cited the blocking of Medicaid funds—on the federal and state level—for the closure.

Colorado will pay over $6 million to an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center, after a court said the state has no right to stop them from spreading dangerous lies about “abortion pill reversal.” The state will settle with Bella Health and Wellness, the Catholic CPC that first brought the suit.

Crisis pregnancy centers’ ability to spread medical disinformation and prey on abortion seekers has become a huge issue since the end of Roe—and it’s now at the heart of a case before the Supreme Court. Despite consumer protection laws that prohibit organizations from lying to and misleading consumers, CPCs seek, and often receive, special treatment—insulating them from basic regulation and accountability.

In fact, Republicans are trying to codify that kind of super-immunity in state and national legislation right now:

The Bill That Could Make Crisis Pregnancy Centers Untouchable

Keep an eye on: an attorney with the conservative legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom responded to the Colorado settlement by hijacking feminist language:

“Many women regret their chemical abortions, and some choose to reverse the effects of the first abortion drug, which can save their baby’s life…But Colorado’s law wrongly attempted to deny women the freedom to make that choice.”

We’ve seen this kind of nonsense before, with conservatives co-opting the term choice, in particular, when defending crisis pregnancy centers. It’s gross, but it’s a strategy worth paying attention to—especially as the anti-abortion movement increasingly uses pro-choice language to trick Americans about the depth of its extremism.

Finally, an Ohio appeals court handed Republicans a procedural win this week—ruling that a lower-court judge went too far when he struck down the state’s entire six-week abortion ban.

Don’t worry, the ban itself is still unconstitutional thanks to a pro-choice ballot measure passed by voters in 2023. But the decision opens the door for lawmakers to try to revive certain provisions of the old law—like civil and criminal enforcement provisions and documentation requirements for doctors.

Again, all of this is happening more than two years after Ohio voters passed a pro-choice ballot measure to protect abortion rights. In other words, Republicans are using every bureaucratic loophole they can to override the will of the voters.

Quick hits:

• A federal appeals court this week rejected the Satanic Temple’s religious-freedom challenge to Indiana’s abortion ban, ruling that the group lacked legal standing;

• As Virginia Democrats prepare to push ahead with a pro-choice ballot measure, Virginia Independent News reminds us that 62% of voters support a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights;

• And Axios provides an overview of what’s happening in Texas during the midterms, as the state rolls out its ban on the mailing of abortion pills.

No, Republicans Are Not Debating ‘Hyde’

Trump continued to cosplay as a moderate on abortion yesterday, telling House Republicans to be “flexible” on abortion during Affordable Care Act negotiations. It didn’t take long for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to walk back his comments in an attempt to preempt anti-abortion anger:

“The president did not change the administration’s policy. It was President Trump who signed an executive order protecting the Hyde Amendment. It’s the Trump administration that has taken multiple actions on various fronts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not funding the practice of abortion.”

We truly don’t know how many ways we can say this: this fight has nothing to do with Hyde. What Republicans and anti-abortion leaders are demanding is far more extreme—a massive expansion of Hyde that would ban abortion coverage not just from federal programs, but from state funds, private insurers, and any Affordable Care Act plans from covering abortion.

If Republicans don’t get this demand, as they’ve reiterated over and over, they’ll refuse to renew ACA tax credits—jacking up health-care premiums. Planned Parenthood’s Sarah Guggenheimer rightly calls this a “poison pill”:

“They forced the ACA tax credits to expire, causing health care costs to skyrocket for millions—and now they’re doing everything but solving the problem they created.”

Still, conservatives aren’t taking Trump’s guidance well. After Trump’s remarks, Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins issued a statement conflating any “plan that prioritizes a ‘deal’ over saving lives” with killing children. And Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser declared, “To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment” of ‘pro-life’ values.”

The Hyde conflation continued: National Review urged Republicans to “strengthen Hyde,” while Life News tweeted, “No President Trump, we will NEVER compromise on the Hyde Amendment.”

Here’s the thing: they all know abortion restrictions are politically toxic. So conservatives are pretending this is about preserving a long-standing policy rather than a sweeping new assault on coverage. That’s why House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back on Trump’s remarks by telling NBC News, “We are not gonna change the standard that we’re not gonna use taxpayer funding for abortion.” (Emphasis ours)

Which is exactly why we have to keep repeating again and again that this is not the “standard.” It’s not business as usual, but an expansive new attack.

At the end of the day all of these organizations and lawmakers are on the same side—and that side does whatever it takes to eliminate access to abortion. They just disagree on strategy with the White House, conscious that they’re backing a losing issue, and determined to be subtler and sneakier to win elections.

What’s On the Horizon

Reproductive Freedom for All has been fighting anti-abortion extremists for decades, so we trust them to know what to expect in the new year. The organization has a pretty extensive list of predictions and flags on what to look out for in 2026, including: federal attacks on medication abortion as a backdoor national ban (a strategy explicitly laid out in Project 2025), the hollow ‘leave it up to the states’ rhetoric that landed us in the exact hell we’re in, and escalating assaults on telehealth abortion and shield laws.

Other flags: a growing push toward fetal personhood, which places pregnant people at exponentially greater risk of criminalization, and the worsened maternal health and mortality outcomes we’re already seeing in banned states.

Another excellent resource for 2026? This Center for Reproductive Rights roundup of how the Trump administration sharply weakened reproductive rights in the U.S. and abroad—all within one year in office. These attacks include greenlighting anti-abortion violence by scaling back enforcement of the FACE Act and pardoning violent activists; weakening abortion patient data privacy and protections for emergency abortions; enacting an abortion ban for veterans; defunding Planned Parenthood; conflating birth control with abortion; and much, much more.

Alabama Woman Spent Five Years in Prison for Stillbirth

Some rare good news out of Alabama: over the holidays, a judge vacated Brooke Shoemaker’s conviction for “chemical endangerment of a child,” five years into her 18-year sentence for experiencing a stillbirth. The court ordered a new trial after Pregnancy Justice presented new medical evidence showing her pregnancy loss was caused by an infection—not substance use.

The state immediately appealed, demanding she remain incarcerated.

Shoemaker’s nightmare began in 2017, when she had a stillbirth at home and was taken to the hospital. She told staff she had used methamphetamine while pregnant. The hospital reported her to police, and a detective interrogated Shoemaker at her bedside. She was soon charged with Class A chemical endangerment—a crime that carries a possible life sentence. She was convicted and sentenced in 2020.

Pregnancy Justice took up her case in 2024, filing a petition based on new evidence and testimony from a medical witness that an infection likely caused the stillbirth. Shoemaker celebrated the organization’s successful bid in a statement days before Christmas:

“After years of fighting, I’m thankful that I’m finally being heard, and I pray that my next Christmas will be spent at home with my children and parents. I’m hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection. I loved and wanted my baby, and I never deserved this.”

Alabama leads the nation in pregnancy-related criminal charges, especially under its ‘chemical endangerment’ law. In the first year after Dobbs, Alabama alone accounted for nearly half of the 210 pregnancy-related arrests that Pregnancy Justice tracked. Alabama’s Etowah County has a history of indefinitely jailing not just pregnant and postpartum women on suspicion of marijuana use—but even one woman merely suspected of being pregnant. (It took days to allow her a pregnancy test, which came up negative.)

That is the level of anti-abortion extremism pregnant people face in Alabama.

This news comes at a time of rising pregnancy-related criminal charges nationwide, particularly in states that enforce abortion bans. But as a reminder, pregnancy criminalization is a nationwide crisis. While bans like Alabama’s create greater criminal suspicion around pregnancy outcomes, the truth is that pregnant people everywhere are vulnerable in a society that broadly demonizes and rushes to blame pregnant women for anything and everything.

CORRECTION: AED reported yesterday that Shoemaker had been freed—that’s not correct. She was granted a new trial, but remains incarcerated.

Pregnancy Justice has spent decades helping women arrested for their pregnancy outcomes. Donate to them here.