John Oliver attacks fetal personhood laws, says they treat women as ‘incubators’

HBO host John Oliver recently attacked laws giving unborn children legal rights, discussing fetal personhood during the Aug. 16 episode of “Last Week Tonight.”⁠

Fetal personhood laws differ by state. Some states use them to limit abortion and protect unborn children. Others use them when someone kills an unborn child during an attack on the mother.

However, Oliver claimed such laws “effectively treat women as incubators,” according to the Guardian⁠.

He pointed to cases in which women faced charges after losing a pregnancy.

Police charged Brittany Watts of Ohio with abuse of a corpse after she suffered a miscarriage at home in 2023. However, a grand jury declined to indict her⁠. Prosecutors later dropped the charge.

Oliver also brought up Marshae Jones. Another woman shot Jones during a 2018 fight, causing the death of her unborn child.

A grand jury indicted Jones on a manslaughter charge. Prosecutors dropped the case⁠ in 2019.

No court convicted either woman.

Federal law already protects unborn children without letting prosecutors charge the mother. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act⁠ creates a separate crime for harming or killing an unborn child during certain federal crimes. 

The law also bars prosecutors from charging a woman over her own unborn child.

Heartlander News made a similar point in 2023⁠. The story noted state and federal laws can treat a pregnant woman and her unborn child as two victims when someone attacks them.

Oliver also claimed fetal personhood threatens in-vitro fertilization.

IVF clinics often create several embryos. Couples use some of them. Clinics freeze or destroy others, ending human life.

“Under that logic, they’d essentially be warehouses where human beings regularly die,” Oliver said.

Heartlander News reported in 2024⁠ that the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos count as children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

The ruling did not ban IVF. It let parents sue after a person entered a clinic’s storage area and destroyed their embryos.

Heartlander News later covered plans⁠ to keep IVF legal while protecting embryos.

Conservative groups urged clinics to create fewer unused embryos. They also wanted parents to have the right to sue when clinics carelessly destroy them.

Those laws can protect an unborn child while shielding the mother from charges. States can also set rules for IVF while keeping the controversial practice legal.