Between 2000 and 2020, at least 61 people were criminally investigated or arrested for allegedly ending their own pregnancy or helping someone else to do so, a report from If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice finds. Based on public criminal court records and media reports, Self-Care, Criminalized: The Criminalization of Self-Managed Abortion from 2000 to 2020 (68 pages, PDF) found that the cases spanned 26 states, with the greatest concentration in Texas, followed by Ohio, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Virginia. The study found a lack of correlation between where investigations and arrests took place and where statutes authorizing the criminalization of self-managed abortion have existed, which suggests that the cases are as much about how prosecutors are bending the law to fit the circumstances as they are about law enforcement carrying out the law. The report also found that healthcare providers serve as a major vector for criminalization through reporting their patients to law enforcement, due in part to confusion about the law. The authors call for protecting patients’ privacy; challenging unlawful charges and prosecutorial tactics that rely on stigma, stereotypes, and false claims about abortion care; broadening decriminalization efforts to address all aspects of people’s reproductive lives; reforming laws that are susceptible to misuse; and reinforcing protections against criminalization by holding law enforcement and prosecutors to the limits of their authority.