A 31-year-old Georgia woman charged with murder in a medication abortion case remained jailed this week in coastal Camden County as the state weighed whether her case would move forward, according to an arrest warrant and court filings.
The warrant alleges that Alexia Moore took pills to induce what police described as an illegal abortion and that authorities found evidence consistent with that account after she sought treatment at a hospital in late December. The arrest warrant, obtained in Kingsland, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Savannah, uses language that echoes Georgia’s 2019 law that bans most abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected.
Court records say Moore arrived at the hospital Dec. 30 complaining of abdominal pain and told medical workers that she had taken misoprostol, a drug used in medication abortions, and the opioid painkiller oxycodone, the warrant says. The fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, according to the warrant.
The warrant says 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.” Police also say an investigator estimated Moore had been pregnant for 22 to 24 weeks, placing the fetus at the threshold of viability, and described the fetus as having become legally a person at the moment of live birth under Georgia law.
Pregnancy Justice, a legal advocacy group, criticized the prosecution approach. “No one should be criminalized for having an abortion,” Dana Sussman, senior vice president of Pregnancy Justice, said in a statement, calling Moore’s case “an unprecedented murder charge for an alleged abortion.”
Moore has been jailed in Camden County since March 4 on charges of murder and illegal drug possession, according to online jail records. Court records show her attorney has filed motions seeking a bond and a speedy trial, and a hearing was scheduled for Monday, the AP reported.
The decision on whether the murder charge will proceed rests with District Attorney Keith Higgins of 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 seeking comment, according to the report.
The warrant’s legal framing drew attention from attorneys and advocacy groups on both sides of abortion policy. A Georgia defense attorney, Andrew Fleischman, who said he is not involved in Moore’s case, told AP that Georgia’s law could allow authorities to seek murder charges against a woman who intentionally terminates a pregnancy after cardiac activity has been detected.
Fleischman said “Murder is intentionally causing the death of a person,” and he added that he and others warned before the law passed that a mother could be charged in a case like this. He said he was “not sure prosecutors are eager to be the first one to jump this hurdle,” and that he thought they could still pursue it.
Elizabeth Edmonds, executive director of the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance, disputed a direct link between the charge and the 2019 law. She said any claim that the charges stem from that law is “misrepresenting the facts and trying to again make it a fear-mongering thing that Georgia is prosecuting women on pregnancy outcomes.” Edmonds said the murder charge was appropriate in part because Moore is accused of illegally obtaining and taking oxycodone before her fetus died.
After Moore’s case entered the legal system, the state’s view of the death also became part of the dispute. The warrant says toxicology testing detected oxycodone in the fetus’ blood, while police were told the test would not be able to detect misoprostol. The warrant says Moore told police she obtained the abortion pills online and got the opioid from a relative.
Camden County Coroner M. Wayne Peeples said he was called to Southeast Georgia Health System’s hospital to take custody of the remains. Peeples told AP that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation declined to perform an autopsy, citing that the fetus was delivered in a hospital. Peeples said he did not rule the death a homicide, and instead found both the cause and manner of death were “undetermined.”
Moore also faces charges for possessing oxycodone, a controlled drug that was not prescribed to her, and possession of a dangerous drug for the abortion-inducing misoprostol, according to the warrant. The drugs misoprostol and mifepristone together are approved for terminating pregnancies during the first 10 weeks of gestation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and misoprostol can be used alone if mifepristone is not available, the AP report said.