A Georgia Hospital Turned Her In, Now She’s Charged With Murder
It's not a crime to take abortion pills, it's not a crime to lose a pregnancy
A 31-year-old woman in Georgia has been charged with murder after allegedly taking abortion pills. The case follows the same pattern Abortion, Every Day has been tracking since the end of Roe: a woman of color is turned in by healthcare providers over her pregnancy outcome, questioned by police while still in the hospital, and her name and mugshot are splashed across local crime pages.
The woman, who we’ll refer to as “AZ,” was arrested a week ago—months after police say she tried to end her pregnancy with misoprostol in December. Despite the fact that Georgia law doesn’t allow for the prosecution of abortion patients, AZ was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor: murder, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of “dangerous drugs” (the abortion medication).
As pregnancy-related arrests ramp up across the country, prosecutors are using charges like “abuse of a corpse” or “failure to report a death” to get around the prohibition on prosecuting patients.
That’s why AZ’s murder charge is particularly notable. It’s unclear why the Camden County district attorney’s office is being so aggressive, especially given that Georgia prosecutors dropped a similar “murder” case in 2015—recognizing that state law didn’t allow for it.
Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel at If/When/How, says Georgia is bringing this case to “spark fear and panic.”
“This is a disgusting abuse of power, but it is not the first time we have seen someone face murder charges for deciding to end their pregnancy. Once again police and prosecutors are working as contortionists to twist the law and wrongly criminalize someone for their pregnancy outcome.”
According to an arrest report obtained by AED, Southeast Georgia Health System-Camden Campus contacted police about “a suspicious circumstance” involving a patient. Unfortunately, this is common: a report from If/When/How found that when self-managed abortion patients are turned in to police, nearly 40% are reported by healthcare providers.
Another familiar tactic? The arrest report doesn’t note how far along AZ’s pregnancy was, but repeatedly uses words like “infant,” and “premature.” Police, prosecutors, and local media will often use similar language to inflame public outrage—even in cases of miscarriage.
That’s what happened in South Carolina, when a coroner classified a 13-week fetus as a “stillborn death” and “premature.” In another South Carolina case, local media declared that a woman was arrested for using a “plastic bag to dump stillborn baby.” AED later discovered she had suffered an 18-week miscarriage. And when we investigated the Laken Snelling case in Kentucky, the coroner in charge told AED, “a lot of times we’ll use the broad term of infant, we could be referring to a fetus.”
That’s the thing: more often than not, these cases have nothing to do with facts, science, or the reality of pregnancy loss. Instead, they’re driven by misinformation—and a desire to punish. And when police and prosecutors have broad power and discretion to decide when to bring these kinds of charges, personal politics and biases can shape that decision-making.
After Commonwealth Attorney Miranda King charged a Kentucky woman with “fetal homicide” for allegedly taking abortion pills, for example, she said she “sought this job with the intention of being a pro-life prosecutor.” (King was forced to drop the homicide charge, but is still pursuing the woman for ‘abuse of a corpse’, ‘tampering with physical evidence’, and ‘concealing the birth of an infant’.) An Ohio woman was also recently charged with ‘outrage of community sensibilities’ and ‘abuse of a corpse’ in connection with fetal remains found in a trash receptacle.
At their core, that’s what so many pregnancy-related criminal charges wind up being about: outrage, ignorance, and punishment.
In AZ’s case, AED has discovered that at least one of the investigators has an active Facebook page brimming with ‘pro-life’ Bible verses, militant pro-Trump posts, and other disturbing far-right content.
We should never take cops’ word as fact in these cases, but especially when they hold beliefs like this. Regardless of who’s behind the arresting and prosecuting, it’s not a crime to lose a pregnancy. It’s not a crime to give birth to an infant that doesn’t survive. Even ordering abortion pills online and taking them isn’t a crime patients can be punished for.
But what this case and so many others remind us is that authorities simply don’t care. They’re just desperate to criminalize us.
That healthcare workers snitch on women is disgusting. I hope that AZ will sue the hospital and the state after charges are dropped.
This is going to have unintended consequences for the patient and the hospital. Women with healthy pregnancies will stop going to the doctor and the hospital because they no longer trust them especially if something goes wrong and a pregnancy or a mother or both are lost because the reasons were preventable. Women in abortion ban or restricted states will move to states where abortion is legal. Birth rates and practicing OB /GYNs will decrease significantly.
If a prosecutor is too quick to charge and then they’re wrong counter-lawsuits will be filed against hospitals and prosecutors driving the costs of healthcare through the roof. And for what reason? Because these damn hospitals are self righteous boors and these prosecutors have no scruples whatsoever.
At the same time women with high risk pregnancies will have more complications and the maternal and infant mortality rates will go through the roof in abortion ban states.