Decades before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, pregnant people faced arrest and prosecution for supposed crimes against the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses they gestated. The Pregnancy Police investigates the legal arguments undergirding these prosecutions and sheds much-needed light on the networks of health-care providers, social workers, and legal personnel participating in this ongoing surveillance and punishment of pregnant people.

Drawing on detailed analyses of legislation, statements from prosecutors and law enforcement, and records from over a thousand arrest cases, Grace E. Howard traces the long history of state attempts to regulate and control people who have the capacity for pregnancy—from the early twentieth century's white supremacist eugenics to the end of Roe and the ever-increasing criminalization of abortion across the United States. 

The Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood
April 22, 2025 | 12:30-1:30pm | Wyckoff Auditorium (BANN 224)

This event is restricted to the Seattle University community. Please be prepared to show your campus ID at the door. 

Grace Howard is an Associate Professor of Justice Studies at San José State University. Dr. Howard is engaged in public scholarship on reproductive politics and law, with expertise on the criminalization of pregnancy, abortion, contraception, miscarriage, and eugenics. Her analysis and commentary have been featured in national and international news outlets including MSNBC, Huffington Post, Telemundo, US News & World Report, Rolling Stone, Truthout, AP News, and NPR. She is Co-Director of the Rutgers University Informed Consent Project. Dr. Howard has authored several published works, including "The Pregnancy Police: Surveillance, Regulation, and Control" in Harvard Law and Policy Review. She is currently working on two new books. Her body of work explores reproductive law and policy, and the dimensions of legal personhood for people with the capacity for pregnancy.

This SEATTLE UNIVERSITY event is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Nursing, the Political Science Department, Students for Reproductive Justice, and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department.