Georgia Woman Charged With Murder After Abortion Pill Use

Alexia Moore, a 31-year-old resident of coastal Camden County, Georgia, has been jailed since March 4 on charges of murder and illegal drug possession. According to court records obtained by police in Kingsland, about 100 miles south of Savannah, Moore arrived at a hospital on December 30 complaining of abdominal pain. She told medical workers that she had taken misoprostol, a drug used in medication abortions, along with the opioid painkiller oxycodone.

The fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, according to police investigators who obtained the arrest warrant. The warrant states that Moore told 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, which is generally at about six weeks' gestation—before many women know they're pregnant. The arrest warrant charging Moore with murder uses language that echoes the law, saying police determined Moore had been pregnant beyond six weeks 'based on medical staff's knowledge that the baby had a beating heart and was struggling to breathe.'

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 decision on whether to prosecute Moore for murder will ultimately be left to District Attorney Keith Higgins of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit.

According to new details from court documents, Moore took 200 mg of misoprostol at home before being rushed to the Southeast Georgia Health System Camden Campus. A friend told police that Moore took the abortion pill because she did not want another child. The newborn was described by police as having 'major health issues' and survived about an hour.

The police report did not initially indicate weeks of gestation for the infant, but subsequent reports from Washington Post suggest Moore was between 22 and 24 weeks pregnant. Dana Sussman, senior vice president at advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, stated that charging Moore with murder is 'cruel and unjust' as Georgia's abortion law does not contemplate such charges.

A security guard at the hospital reported her pregnancy and abortion to police, who questioned her in the hospital but did not arrest her until this week. The arrest warrant notes that Moore did not know how many weeks pregnant she was, but alleges that she was responsible for the death 'of 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,' the warrant said. Elizabeth Edmonds, executive director of the anti-abortion nonprofit Georgia Life Alliance, said in a statement that 'this innocent baby girl was born alive and under Georgia law, her death is being investigated and prosecuted like any other.'

Superior court judge Steven Blackerby set a $1 bond for Moore during a bond hearing on Monday. He described the charge as “extremely problematic”, adding: “I have concerns that the state would ever be able to secure a conviction of malice murder.”