Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood

Policing the Womb is a groundbreaking book that exposes the chilling ways in which women have become the targets of secretive state surveillance of their pregnancies.

Goodwin expands the reproductive health and rights debate beyond abortion to include how legislators increasingly turn to criminalizing women for miscarriages, stillbirths, and threatening the health of their pregnancies.

The book reveals horrific results, including women giving birth while shackled in leg irons, in solitary confinement, and even delivering in prison toilets.

In some states, pregnancy has become a bargaining chip with prosecutors offering reduced sentences in exchange for women agreeing to be sterilized.

Goodwin warns that poor women are simply the canaries in the coalmine as some legislators now claim that women’s constitutional rights equal that of embryos and fetuses.

This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about reproductive justice, human rights, and the future of women's healthcare.