When the American Brittney Poolaw was taken to the Comanche County Memorial Hospital in Lawton, Oklahoma, in January 2020, the umbilical cord was still attached to her fetus.

The then 20-year-old had suffered a miscarriage at home in the 16th week of pregnancy.

Poolaw, an indigenous man, said she used marijuana and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, while she was in hospital.

She was arrested two months after the miscarriage. The manslaughter indictment said that Poolaw was responsible for the death of her fetus through drug use. After a year and a half in prison, the twenty-one-year-old was recently found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison - after just one day of trial. “Contrary to medical research, prosecutors blamed Ms. Poolaw's miscarriage on the use of banned substances. Even forensic medicine has not found that the consumption of the substances triggered the miscarriage, ”said the organization National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). The association referred to the autopsy report, which named congenital anomalies or premature detachment of the placenta as possible causes.

Not only the NAPW was outraged.

The American Indian woman's cause rekindled the debate over the prosecution of miscarriages and stillbirths.

The unusually harsh verdict against Poolaw, warned women's rights activists, reflects the trend against self-determination and the protection of pregnant women.

Like Texas, Oklahoma is one of the states that passed laws to tighten abortion regulations in the past few months.

In April, Oklahoma's Republican Governor Kevin Stitt signed three bills to make abortion almost impossible in the Sooner State.

Texan role model

Following the Texas model, one of the laws prohibits abortions after the sixth week - a period in which many women have not yet noticed their own pregnancy. Again and again drug laws and regulations against child neglect are used to hold American women legally accountable for the premature end of a pregnancy.

Two years ago, California prosecutors charged 25-year-old Chelsea Becker with murder when drug was found in the body of her stillborn child. A few months later, the case of pregnant African American Marshae Jones caused a stir. The twenty-seven-year-old was charged with manslaughter in Alabama after an acquaintance shot her in the stomach in an argument, killing Jones' unborn child. Prosecutors blamed Jones for the death of the fetus because they started the argument. After an outcry on social media, the judicial authorities dropped the charges.

Against the background of the heated abortion debate, women's associations such as the Yellowhammer Fund warned against similarly harsh legal interpretations.

Meanwhile, Poolaw awaits another trial in Oklahoma.

After being sentenced to four years in prison, the NAPW has now announced an appeal.

The indigenous fetus was not viable in the 16th week of pregnancy.

This means that he does not fall under the laws against “fetal harm”, which were still in force in Oklahoma at the beginning of 2020.