Reproductive Policing: A Review

In 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned nearly fifty years of the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade in its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization . In the period since, mounting legal and medical chaos has emerged, testing the limits of law and legal order and resulting in heightened surveillance and policing of pregnancy and motherhood. This review, however, starts from the perspective that reproductive policing and surveillance began before Dobbs and even Roe . Its origins must rightfully be acknowledged as dating back centuries to the commodification of women and children and the federal enactment of fugitive slave laws, which implicitly and explicitly embedded surveillance in their texts. Weaving an analytical thread from the Antebellum period to the present, this review observes the persistence of policing, even as it has transformed throughout the decades.