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A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal abortion.
If state prosecutors decide to move forward with the murder charge brought by local police against Alexia Moore, her case would be one of the first instances of a woman being charged for terminating a pregnancy in Georgia since it passed a 2019 law banning most abortions.
The arrest warrant charging Moore with murder uses language that echoes the law, saying police determined that Moore had been pregnant beyond 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-president of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice said in a statement, calling Moore’s case “an unprecedented murder charge for an alleged abortion”.
Court records say Moore arrived at a hospital on 30 December complaining of abdominal pain. She told medical workers that she had taken misoprostol, a drug used in medication abortions, and the opioid painkiller oxycodone, according to an arrest warrant obtained by police in Kingsland, about 100 miles (160km) south of Savannah.
The fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, the warrant says. The police investigator obtaining the warrant wrote that Moore told the nursing staff: “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 activity can be detected. That’s generally at about six weeks’ gestation – before many women know they’re pregnant.
Moore has been jailed in coastal Camden county since 4 March on charges of murder and illegal drug possession, according to online jail records.
Moore’s mother said she had no immediate comment when reached by phone on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Georgia Public Defender Council confirmed that one of its attorneys is representing Moore but made no further comment.
Court records show Moore’s attorney has filed legal motions seeking bond and a speedy trial. A court hearing was scheduled for Monday.
Ultimately, the decision on whether to prosecute Moore for murder will be left to Keith Higgins, the district attorney for the Brunswick judicial circuit, who would first have to obtain an indictment from a grand jury. Higgins did not immediately return phone and email messages.
The drugs misoprostol and mifepristone together are approved for terminating pregnancies during the first 10 weeks of gestation by the US Food and Drug Administration. Misoprostol can also be used alone if mifepristone is not available. It’s also used off-label for abortion in the second trimester.
