A Cop Was Charged With Causing His Wife’s Miscarriage. Alabama’s Laws Came Down Harder on Pregnant Women Who Used Drugs.

Alabama authorities charged police officer Robert Maddox Jr. with murder after investigators suspected he caused his pregnant wife’s miscarriage by assaulting her. His case highlights a disparity in how the state’s fetal personhood laws have been applied: Maddox was released on bond and did not return to jail, while pregnant women accused of exposing pregnancies to drug-related risks have faced lengthy jail or prison terms.

Brittany Maddox reported that her husband choked and beat her before and after the pregnancy loss, and provided photographs, messages and testimony to support her account. A fellow officer told investigators that Maddox had admitted to hitting and choking her, including the night before the miscarriage. The article says that in nearly two decades of similar prosecutions in Houston County, the defendants were pregnant women accused of potentially endangering a fetus through drug use; in all but one case, their babies survived.