People are being imprisoned for miscarrying and for speaking out.

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FACE OUR FEARS: People are being imprisoned for the new crimes of miscarrying and speaking out.

NOTE: I discuss miscarriage in this section so please jump to the next section under REALITY CHECK if this topic is triggering.

Strange things are happening.

Last week, a 24-year-old woman from Georgia was found unconscious and bleeding after suffering a miscarriage near her apartment complex in Georgia. She was immediately transported to the hospital for treatment and then arrested after a witness reported to the police that she had placed a fetus in a bag and placed the bag inside the dumpster.

She is being charged with concealing the “death of another person" and throwing away a dead body. She is currently in jail.

As of 2025, Georgia's current law bans most abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is at about six weeks and before many people know they are pregnant.

What exactly are the rules for when you have to report the fetal material as a “body?”How many people have miscarried in their toilets and flushed the remains? How many people have miscarried in the shower or in other places and not been able to “properly dispose” of the tissue remains?

What does that even mean?

Was she supposed to alert the police? In Georgia? The same police who are arresting people who have undergone abortions or miscarriages?

This woman should not be in jail. She should be at home, recovering from the trauma of losing her pregnancy. As we continue to denigrate the experiences of women and all birthing people, reducing them to nothing more than a vessel to provide future laborers to exploit, it is not surprising that the Trump regime wants to fill for-profit prisons with women and people who have done nothing more than suffer the trauma of losing a pregnancy.

For anyone who is still supporting these dangerous abortion bans that are now manifesting into miscarriage bans, you have to ask yourself: To what end?

We are not here for the sole purpose to reproduce. Reproduction does not define woman-ness. It does not define value to the state. It does not define the intrinsic value as human beings.

Reproduction is something we are able to do — it is not who we are.

To criminalize miscarriage that, according to several studies, happens about 10 to 20 out of every 100 known pregnancies, means we are theoretically criminalizing 10-20% of birthing people for taking on the risk of pregnancy. (And studies have suggested that those numbers are vastly undercounted because of the sensitive and personal nature of this issue).

When (and IF) the Democrats or another opposition party find themselves in power, the first thing they need to do is codify abortion rights into whatever is left of our constitution so that no pregnant person will ever fear the threat of imprisonment ever again. I am tired of the left playing politics with our bodies, dangling them like a carrot to win our votes, and I am tired of the right capitalizing on fear and misinformation in order to further their fascist agenda.

REALITY CHECK: None of us are free unless all of us are free

Gender rights must include racial equity. Gender rights must include immigrant rights. We must stand with all of our TLBQ+ communities, as we know that authoritarianism will come for the most vulnerable first — but never stops there. These issues form a lattice that cages some of us more tightly than others. We cannot demand equality for some while ignoring the cries of others who need to be seen in their full humanity.

Case in point:

Democracy Now! reported that over a thousand protesters gathered near Tufts University on Wednesday after masked plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Surveillance video shows agents approaching her on the streets near her home Tuesday evening and handcuffing her while she screamed for help. Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest… Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration’s response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus that were calling for divestment from Israel.