Ruling Class Attacks on Women’s Reproductive Rights

Lê Trần Steik

Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman, was criminally charged with felony abuse of a corpse after experiencing a miscarriage. Watts, who was denied abortion care at 22 weeks despite a non-viable pregnancy and life-threatening risks, miscarried at home days later. Her ordeal began when a hospital worker falsely reported her to the police for allegedly mishandling fetal remains, leading to charges two weeks after her traumatic loss. Now, Watts has filed a federal lawsuit against her healthcare providers, the hospital, the police, and the city of Warren for their roles in her criminalization.

This case is not isolated. Similar patterns have emerged nationwide, as seen in Vermont, where A.V., a pregnant woman, was secretly investigated by the state’s child welfare agency based on unfounded mental health claims made by staff at a homeless shelter in 2022 who invented numerous diagnoses which have not received confirmation from medical professionals. Without her knowledge, authorities tracked her pregnancy, shared private medical information, and seized custody of her baby immediately after birth. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice alleges these actions reflect an illegal surveillance program disproportionately targeting poor women.

These stories reflect the oppression of poor and working-class women under the imperialist system and highlights the increasingly reactionary control exerted over women’s reproductive rights. The old-state, in the service of capitalist interest, has long sought to control women’s reproductive autonomy to preserve its power. From the forced sterilization of Black and Native American women in the 20th century, to the criminalization of abortion and miscarriage today, the attacks on poor and working women’s rights expose the system’s reliance on inflicting a lower status on women, dividing the class and diminishing wages, all to maintain their rule.

The intensifying struggle for reproductive rights stems from a sharpening contradiction between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Congressional reforms, like state-level abortion protections or minimum wage increases, are not victories freely granted by the ruling class—they are hard won gains of the working masses. Without actively resisting encroachments on these rights, these gains remain precarious, constantly threatened by reactionary forces. Consider the erasure of reproductiverights.gov, which went offline the night of Trump’s inauguration—a symbolic act of contempt for working women’s autonomy and a prelude to the systematic dismantling of reproductive rights under his administration.

Photo: St. Joseph Warren Hospital, where Watts’s lawsuit alleges the staff conspired with the police to arrest her following her miscarriage. Retrieved from Mercy Health.

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