Tennessee’s fetal assault statute, and the systems in which it was embedded, did not appear out of thin air. To the contrary, both the statute and the systems in which it operated are deeply rooted in the history and practices of US punishment and social support systems and in the stigmas about race, sex, and socioeconomic status that undergird and inform those systems. Similarly, this book does not stand alone. It is rooted in, and in conversation with, the work of many other scholars writing in the fields it touches. This chapter lays the historical ground and locates this book in these larger academic conversations.