No state in the U.S. currently allows the death penalty for abortion. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, however, lawmakers in at least nine states have introduced bills that would classify abortion as homicide, and because eight of those states authorize capital punishment for homicide, the practical effect of enactment would be to put patients and doctors at risk of execution. Every one of those bills has failed, most of them killed in committee by the same Republican majorities that passed the underlying abortion bans.
Which States Have Introduced These Bills
A March 2025 analysis by researchers at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute identified nine states where 2025 legislation would define the destruction of a zygote, embryo, or fetus from fertilization as homicide: Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.1Georgetown Law O’Neill Institute. Laws That Would Make Abortion Homicide in Nine US States Every one of those states except North Dakota currently authorizes capital punishment.2BMJ. Abortion as Homicide Legislation in Nine US States
The specific bills were Georgia’s HB 441, Idaho’s SB 1059, Indiana’s HB 1334, Kentucky’s HB 523, Missouri’s HB 1072, North Dakota’s HB 1373, Oklahoma’s SB 456, South Carolina’s H 3537, and Texas’s HB 2197. A tenth state joined the list in 2026: Tennessee, where Representative Jody Barrett filed HB 570.
Between the 2024 and 2025 sessions, at least 15 states saw bills of this kind introduced. None had been signed into law as of mid-2026.3KFF Health News. Abortion Ban Republican Lawmakers Prosecuting Women South Carolina
What the Bills Would Do
All nine of the 2025 bills would expose pregnant individuals to murder or manslaughter charges by treating the pregnancy as a legal person from the moment of fertilization. Five would also open a path for family members to sue for wrongful death. Each carried a narrow exception permitting abortion to save the life of the pregnant person, but only if the provider took “reasonable steps” to preserve the life of the fetus.2BMJ. Abortion as Homicide Legislation in Nine US States
Some bills went further than others. Oklahoma’s SB 456, filed by Senator Dusty Deevers, would have classified receiving an abortion as homicide punishable by life in prison or the death penalty and would have outlawed abortion-inducing drugs, with exceptions for miscarriages and life-threatening emergencies.4Oklahoma Legislature. SB 456 Bill Information South Carolina’s SB 323, the “Unborn Child Protection Act” from Senator Richard Cash, would have imposed prison sentences of up to 30 years for patients and providers, stripped out existing rape and incest exceptions, and let relatives sue women who obtained abortions.5SC Daily Gazette. Senators Reject SCs Abortion Ban Touted as Strictest Nationwide Texas HB 2197, from Representative Brent Money, would have removed the current statutory shield that keeps patients from being prosecuted and applied the state’s homicide laws to abortion from fertilization forward.6Houston Public Media. Texas Lawmakers Ditch Discussion on Controversial Bill That Would Make Abortion Murder Tennessee HB 570 would have reached even further, applying to women who traveled out of state.7Tennessee Lookout. Tennessee Lawmakers Turn Back Restrictive Abortion Bill
Why the Bills Keep Failing
The pattern across states is remarkably consistent: Republican legislators, not Democrats, are killing these bills.
Oklahoma’s SB 456 died in a bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee vote on February 19, 2025.8Oklahoma Voice. Oklahoma Lawmakers Reject Giving Women Death Penalty Texas HB 2197 was pulled from the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee calendar on April 22, 2025, ending its chances for the session. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had already said publicly, “We shouldn’t punish women, of course not.”9Texas Policy Research. Abolition of Abortion Legislation Filed in Texas House
In South Carolina, a Medical Affairs subcommittee rejected SB 323 by a 2–3 vote on November 18, 2025. Four of the six Republicans on the panel declined to vote at all. Senator Billy Garrett said, “This world needs more love than hate.” Senator Tom Corbin objected that provisions restricting information about out-of-state abortions violated the First Amendment.10South Carolina Public Radio. Restrictive Anti-Abortion Bill Splits SC Senate Republicans The companion House measure, H 3537, was referred to the Judiciary Committee in January 2025 and sat there without further action.11South Carolina Legislature. H 3537 Prenatal Equal Protection Act
Georgia’s HB 441 got a March 26, 2025 hearing in the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee but no vote.12Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Georgia House Panel Considers Total Abortion Ban Kentucky’s HB 523 stalled in the House Judiciary Committee after being referred there on February 21, 2025.13Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. 25RS HB 523
Tennessee HB 570 met the same fate in 2026. When it reached the House Population Health Subcommittee on March 10, 2026, no Republican member offered a motion to advance it. Republican Majority Leader William Lamberth called criminalizing patients “a bridge too far” and said, “We don’t punish mothers here in this state.” Senate sponsor Mark Pody conceded he lacked the votes upstairs.14Nashville Banner. Tennessee Anti-Abortion Bill Jody Barrett Death Penalty Barrett has said he plans to reintroduce the bill in 2027.
Established anti-abortion organizations have often lobbied against these bills. The Texas Alliance for Life urged opposition to HB 2197, saying it would “deter women from seeking help and make it harder to stop illegal abortion providers.” Tennessee Right to Life and the crisis pregnancy center network Portico opposed HB 570. Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins has called supporters of the approach “social media trolls.”14Nashville Banner. Tennessee Anti-Abortion Bill Jody Barrett Death Penalty
Public polling helps explain the resistance. A 2022 survey by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation found that 57 percent of voters said abortion should not be a crime at all, and only 14 percent favored criminalizing it at every stage of pregnancy. Among Republicans, 77 percent opposed criminalization before fetal viability.15Program for Public Consultation. Nearly Six in Ten Voters Reject Criminalizing Any Abortions A separate survey cited in a BMJ commentary found that only 24 percent of American men and 15 percent of American women supported charging women who have abortions with murder.16BMJ. Rapid Response to Abortion Homicide Legislation
What Existing Abortion Laws Actually Penalize
The bills described above are proposals, not law. Existing abortion bans in most states target providers, and none authorize the death penalty for anyone.
Texas is a useful illustration. Current law imposes a minimum $100,000 fine, potential loss of medical license, and possible life imprisonment on clinicians who perform prohibited abortions, but the statute explicitly provides that the pregnant patient “cannot and should not be prosecuted.”17FactCheck.org. Texas Abortion Recipients Not Subject to Penalty Eleven of the 12 states with total abortion bans impose criminal penalties on providers. Alabama’s are the most severe, with a Class A felony carrying a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of 99.18KFF. Criminal Penalties for Physicians in State Abortion Bans No clinician has been jailed for performing an abortion since Dobbs.
The Constitutional Obstacle
Even if a state did enact a law permitting execution for abortion, it would run into Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), in which the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for crimes against individuals that do not result in the victim’s death. The case involved the rape of a child, but its reasoning limited capital punishment to homicide offenses. Whether a state defining abortion as homicide from fertilization could satisfy that framework, by arguing a death has in fact occurred, would be a novel question.19Washington and Lee University School of Law. The Future of the Eighth Amendment
Kennedy itself may be vulnerable. Florida in 2023 and Tennessee in 2024 enacted laws permitting the death penalty for child rape with the stated goal of forcing the Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling. The policy blueprint known as Project 2025 recommends that the Department of Justice seek to overturn it, and in early 2025, following an executive order by President Trump, the Attorney General directed the DOJ to pursue the overruling of precedents limiting capital punishment.
Who Is Behind the Push
The legislators sponsoring these bills are aligned with a wing of the anti-abortion movement that calls itself “abolitionist,” borrowing the language of the 19th-century antislavery cause. Abolitionists reject the incremental strategy of restricting abortion week by week and targeting only providers, favoring full criminalization from fertilization with penalties applied to patients as well as doctors.20NPR. Abortion Republicans Abolitionist IVF
Key organizations include Abolitionists Rising, led by T. Russell Hunter and based in Oklahoma; End Abortion Now, an Arizona-based church network; and the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, a Texas legal hub led by Bradley Pierce, who drafts model “equal protection” bills for state legislatures. The movement is rooted in Christian Reconstructionism, a theocratic ideology advocating governance based on Biblical law.21Political Research Associates. Abortion Abolitionists 101 Supporters have also pursued a “precinct strategy” of running for local Republican Party positions to shift the party platform. In Texas, “Abolish Abortion in Texas” appeared as a priority in the state party’s 2023–2024 legislative agenda.
The trend line is upward even without a legislative win. Reproductive Freedom for All reported at least 38 personhood bills introduced across 24 states in 2025 alone.22Reproductive Freedom for All. Six Reproductive Freedom Storylines to Watch in 2026 The Guttmacher Institute counted at least 17 states and one territory introducing 36 personhood bills by June 2026, along with eight states introducing 14 bills that would explicitly criminalize pregnant people for obtaining abortions. None had been enacted.23Guttmacher Institute. State Policy Trends Midyear Analysis The bills keep coming, and their sponsors have said they will keep filing them.