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News Link • Pro-life/Pro Choice

Georgia Woman Charged With Murder After Attempted Abortion

• https://thefreethoughtproject.com, Truthout

A woman in Georgia was charged with murder last week after she attempted to have an abortion nearly three months ago.

Alexia Moore, 31, faces felony murder charges for her attempt to abort her fetus using the abortion medication Misoprostol. She also faces charges for possession and use of a controlled substance, as she reportedly used Oxycodone to deal with the pain she believed she would experience from the abortion.

In Georgia, abortion is illegal after six weeks under the state's so-called "heartbeat" law. It's unclear how Moore obtained the medication.

Moore was admitted to a hospital in late December after having taken the medications. Her pain was so severe that doctors birthed the fetus, which died hours afterward. Moore was not charged with any crime until last week, and is currently in jail without bond, awaiting a hearing set for Monday.

The murder charges Moore faces are an escalation of the lengths law enforcement and states are going to in order to punish people who exercise autonomy over their own bodies, reproductive rights and abortion journalist Jessica Valenti said in a brief video reporting on the story.

"The fact that they are charging this woman with murder is really relevant because they know they're not supposed to do it," Valenti said, noting that Georgia law isn't supposed to go after individuals who have abortions but rather their providers. "Especially in this case, where they took the first police report on this in December, but they didn't arrest or charge her until a week ago."

The delay in charging Moore "means that this is well-considered," Valenti added. "They had months to think about this, and to decide what to charge her with. And they decided to charge her with murder."

Law enforcement was called to the hospital in December shortly after it was learned that Moore had attempted to have an abortion. The local sheriff's department based her eventual arrest on statements from a staffer at the hospital as well as from a friend who drove her there. The arrest warrant also refers to documentation taken by the hospital.

It is believed that this is the first case, following the newer restrictions, in which a person in Georgia has been charged with murder after attempting to self-administer an abortion.


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