Woman Charged With Murder After Taking Pills To Induce Abortion | EUROtoday

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A 31-year-old Georgia lady has been charged with homicide by police who say she took capsules to induce an unlawful abortion.

If state prosecutors resolve to maneuver ahead with the homicide cost introduced by native police towards Alexia Moore, her case could be one of many first situations of a lady being charged for terminating a being pregnant in Georgia because it handed a 2019 legislation banning most abortions.

The arrest warrant charging Moore with homicide makes use of language that echoes the legislation, saying police decided Moore had been pregnant past six weeks “based on the medical staff’s knowledge that the baby had a beating heart and was struggling to breathe.”

“No one should be criminalized for having an abortion,” Dana Sussman, senior vice chairman of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice stated in a press release, calling Moore’s case “an unprecedented murder charge for an alleged abortion.”

Court data say Moore arrived at a hospital Dec. 30 complaining of stomach ache. She instructed medical staff that she had taken misoprostol, a drug utilized in remedy abortions, and the opioid painkiller oxycodone, based on an arrest warrant obtained by police in Kingsland, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Savannah.

The fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered on the hospital, the warrant says. The police investigator acquiring the warrant wrote that Moore instructed the nursing workers: “I know my infant is suffering, because I am the one who did the abortion. I want her to die.”

Georgia bans abortion after embryonic cardiac exercise might be detected. That’s usually at about six weeks’ gestation – earlier than many ladies know they’re pregnant.

Moore has been jailed in coastal Camden County since March 4 on prices of homicide and unlawful drug possession, based on on-line jail data.

A 2024 examine by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice discovered that a minimum of 210 girls throughout the U.S. have been charged with crimes associated to their pregnancies within the 12 months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to implement abortion bans.

That tally was greater than the group present in another 12 month interval. Most of the instances concerned allegations of substance use throughout being pregnant.

Moore’s mom stated she had no rapid remark when reached by telephone Thursday. A spokesperson for the Georgia Public Defender Council confirmed one in every of its attorneys is representing Moore however made no additional remark.

Court data present Moore’s legal professional has filed authorized motions looking for a bond and a speedy trial. A court docket listening to was scheduled for Monday.

Ultimately, the choice on whether or not to prosecute Moore for homicide will probably be left to District Attorney Keith Higgins of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, who would first need to get hold of an indictment from a grand jury. Higgins didn’t instantly return telephone and electronic mail messages.

The warrant stated medical data estimated Moore had been pregnant for 22 to 24 weeks, putting her fetus on the threshold of viability. It refers to Moore’s fetus as “a human being who was born alive and survived for one hour. Under Georgia law, the victim became a person at the moment of live birth.”

Georgia’s abortion legislation states that an embryo is legally an individual as soon as cardiac exercise might be detected. Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia protection legal professional who is just not concerned in Moore’s case, stated meaning authorities may search homicide prices towards a lady who deliberately terminates her being pregnant after there’s cardiac exercise.

“Murder is intentionally causing the death of a person,” he stated, including that he and others warned earlier than the legislation handed {that a} mom may very well be charged in a case like this.

“I’m not sure prosecutors are eager to be the first one to jump this hurdle,” Fleishman stated. “I think it’s a totally legally permissible case. I think they could do it. I’d be surprised if they go through with it.”

Elizabeth Edmonds, government director of the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance, stated any declare that the fees stem from the 2019 abortion legislation is “misrepresenting the facts and trying to again make it a fear-mongering thing that Georgia is prosecuting women on pregnancy outcomes.”

Edmonds stated she believed the homicide cost was applicable partly as a result of Moore is accused of illegally acquiring and taking oxycodone earlier than her fetus died.

The warrant says a toxicology screening detected oxycodone within the fetus’ blood, however police have been instructed the take a look at wouldn’t be capable of detect misoprostol. It says Moore instructed police she obtained the abortion capsules on-line and obtained the opioid from a relative.

Camden County Coroner M. Wayne Peeples stated Thursday that he was known as to Southeast Georgia Health System’s hospital to take custody of the stays. He stated the Georgia Bureau of Investigation declined to carry out an post-mortem, noting the fetus was delivered in a hospital.

The coroner stated he didn’t rule the loss of life as a murder, as a substitute discovering each the trigger and method of loss of life have been undetermined.

Moore additionally faces prices for possessing oxycodone, a managed drug that wasn’t prescribed to her, in addition to possession of a harmful drug for the abortion-inducing misoprostol.

The medication misoprostol and mifepristone collectively are accepted for terminating pregnancies throughout the first 10 weeks of gestation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Misoprostol will also be used alone if mifepristone is just not accessible. It’s additionally used off-label for abortion within the second trimester.

In 2024, Louisiana labeled mifepristone and misoprostol as managed harmful substances. Similar laws has been launched in another states and in Congress, however has not been adopted elsewhere.

AP journalists Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this story.

saying she had urged Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s workplace to think about motion towards the tablet supplier in Moore’s case. (

it’s flawed to attach the homicide cost to the 2019 legislation. She stated any lady in Georgia lengthy may have been charged with homicide if she took an unlawful drug just like the oxycodone referenced within the warrant and her fetus then died, particularly if the girl took the drug meaning to hurt the fetus, as police declare Moore did. She stated that to say the fees end result from the 2019 legislation is “misrepresenting the facts and trying to again make it a fear-mongering thing that Georgia is prosecuting women on pregnancy outcomes.”