Lizelle Gonzalez’s story begins in Starr County, Texas, where her private decision to end a pregnancy became the epicenter of a national debate over reproductive rights and the criminalization of pregnancy. On April 7, 2022, Gonzalez was arrested and charged with murder for taking medication to terminate her pregnancy—a charge that would later be dropped, but not before sparking outrage and highlighting the growing legal risks faced by women in states with strict abortion bans.
According to the ACLU of Texas, which supported Gonzalez in her legal battle, Texas law "clearly prohibits the criminal prosecution of pregnant women for conduct that ends their pregnancies." Instead, the law targets physicians and those who assist women in seeking or obtaining abortions. Yet, Gonzalez found herself behind bars, her case thrust into the national spotlight as a chilling example of what can happen when the law is misapplied—or ignored altogether.
Gonzalez’s ordeal began after she sought medical help in January 2022, following the use of medication to induce an abortion. As reported by CBS News, she was hospitalized twice—first after taking the medication, and again after experiencing abdominal pain and bleeding. Doctors performed a cesarean section, delivering a stillborn fetus after detecting no fetal cardiac activity. A nurse, concerned about potential legal ramifications due to recent changes in Texas law, reported the incident to police. This led to Gonzalez’s arrest and indictment, despite the state’s homicide statute explicitly exempting pregnant women from prosecution for ending their own pregnancies.
After Gonzalez’s arrest, public outcry was swift and fierce. Her attorneys filed a civil complaint, arguing her constitutional rights had been violated. The ACLU of Texas stated on August 12, 2025, that evidence revealed "a coordinated effort between the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office to violate Ms. Gonzalez’s rights and exposes misconduct by government officials who think the law they are entrusted to enforce does not apply to them."
The legal filings reveal the impact of public pressure. Emails poured into the district attorney’s office, alerting officials that the murder charge was unlawful. Hours before Gonzalez was released on April 9, 2022—after her family posted a $500,000 bond—Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez texted Sheriff Rene Fuentes, saying they had "stirred up a hornets nest." According to court documents, Ramirez admitted to friends and family that he had made a grave mistake, even texting his son, "I f***** up." In another message, he confided, "I may pay the consequences with my career but once I realized this injustice, I had to make it right." On April 11, 2022, the charges were dropped.
Ramirez later met with Gonzalez, offering a personal and emotional apology. The lawsuit describes how he "apologized a lot, admitting his wrongdoing to Plaintiff herself and becoming very emotional." Still, the damage was done. Gonzalez’s attorney, Cecilia Garza, accused Starr County officials of abusing their power and intentionally violating her client’s rights. "Lizelle Gonzalez’s highly personal decision regarding her pregnancy was not, and never has been, a criminal matter—yet the Starr County district attorney, his assistant district attorneys, the Starr County Sheriff’s Office ignored the clear language of the Texas homicide statute and long standing law to wrongly charge her with murder," Garza said in a statement.
The fallout extended beyond the courtroom. After Gonzalez’s arrest and indictment, the Texas bar investigated Ramirez for "knowingly pursuing an unlawful indictment." He was fined and received a one-year fully probated suspension. Meanwhile, Gonzalez filed a lawsuit in 2024 against Fuentes, Ramirez, and Assistant District Attorney Alexandria Barrera, seeking accountability for the violation of her rights.
Gonzalez’s case is not an isolated incident. Since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, Texas and 11 other states have enacted near-total bans on abortion, according to The New York Times. This legal landscape has led to a surge in arrests and prosecutions following pregnancy loss, particularly in states with strict abortion bans. A report by Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit tracking pregnancy-related prosecutions, documented 210 such cases in the year following the Dobbs ruling—the highest annual number ever recorded by researchers.
Of those 210 cases, 133 involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy, reflecting a broader trend of prosecutors using existing laws—like child endangerment and neglect statutes—beyond their original intent to criminalize pregnancy. "The vast majority of pregnancy-related prosecutions involve prosecutors actually using existing laws like child endangerment, neglect and abuse statutes beyond their original intent to criminalize pregnancy," said Michele Ko, project manager at Pregnancy Justice.
Pregnancy Justice’s data, which stretches back to 1973, reveals the scope of the problem: over 400 documented cases between 1973 and 2005, and nearly 1,400 cases between 2006 and June 2022. Since Dobbs, the risk of prosecution has only grown, deterring some women from seeking medical care and, as a result, worsening maternal health outcomes. "Since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the legal landscape has shifted significantly," said Ross Goodman, a criminal defense attorney. "As a criminal defense attorney, I’m seeing legal risks increase in both volume and ambiguity, which can have serious consequences."
The threat is not distributed evenly. Of the 210 women prosecuted post-Dobbs, 30 were Black, underscoring persistent racial disparities. The criminalization of pregnancy has disproportionately targeted communities of color since the 1980s, beginning with debunked claims about cocaine’s effects on unborn children. As drug trends shifted, prosecutions expanded to poor white communities, but low-income people of all backgrounds remain most affected.
Recent cases illustrate the human toll. Brittany Watts in Ohio and Amari Marsh in South Carolina—both Black women—faced criminal charges after miscarriages in 2023. Watts was charged with "abuse of a corpse," while Marsh was accused of "homicide by child abuse." Both cases were ultimately dropped after grand juries declined to indict, but not before Marsh spent 22 days in jail and Watts endured months of legal uncertainty.
"In states with strict abortion bans, a miscarriage is treated less like a medical event and more like a potential crime scene," Goodman observed. "We’ve seen cases where women have been investigated or even charged for not seeking medical care ‘soon enough’ or simply because the circumstances of the pregnancy loss raised suspicion among people who are not medical professionals."
Advocates argue that the solution lies in policy reform. "We need to be changing policy and practices to ensure that pregnant women have access to the health care and support they need without fear of criminalization," said Ko. "It’s really going to take all of us to ensure that all people—regardless of pregnancy status or outcome—have the freedom to make decisions about their bodies and experience a life of dignity and respect."
Gonzalez’s case, and the many others like it, underscore a profound shift in the legal and social landscape since the fall of Roe v. Wade. As the debate over reproductive rights rages on, the stories of women caught in the crosshairs serve as a sobering reminder of the human cost of criminalizing pregnancy.
