Moore’s case centers on what police say happened after she arrived at a hospital on Dec. 30 in coastal Camden County, and on how the state’s homicide charge will be tested in court. On Monday, Superior Court Judge Steven Blackerby granted the release terms for Alexia Moore by setting a $1 bond on a murder count tied to accusations that she took pills to induce an illegal abortion.
In remarks during Moore’s bond hearing, Blackerby said the murder charge was “extremely problematic,” and he added, “That is going to be a hard charge to convict upon,” according to the hearing reports cited by The Associated Press. Blackerby set Moore’s total bond at $2,001, and within that total he assigned $1 for the murder count.
Alongside the $1 murder bond, the judge ordered $1,000 bond amounts for each of two additional drug charges that Moore faces. Those decisions came after Moore spent nearly three weeks in jail, the reporting said, following her arrest earlier this month.
Police took Moore into custody on March 4 using an arrest warrant that prosecutors and reporters said echoed Georgia’s ban on abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected—generally around six weeks of gestation, before many people know they are pregnant. Her case has been described as one of the first in Georgia in which a woman has been charged for terminating a pregnancy since the law was adopted in 2019.
The district attorney for Georgia’s Brunswick Judicial Circuit, Keith Higgins, did not oppose the $1 bond amount in court on Monday, according to reporting cited by AP. The reporting also said Higgins’ office had not been consulted before police brought the charges, and a person who answered the phone at the district attorney’s office said Tuesday that Higgins does not comment on pending cases.
Online jail records showed Moore posted bond and was released Monday, AP reported. Moore is represented by attorneys from the Georgia Public Defender Council, which praised the judge’s decision in a statement, saying “Our system works best when courts carefully weigh the facts, uphold constitutional protections, and safeguard the rights of every person who comes before them.”
The arrest warrant obtained by police, according to AP’s account, said Moore arrived at the hospital on Dec. 30 complaining of abdominal pain. The warrant says Moore told medical workers that she had taken misoprostol—a drug used in medication abortions—and the opioid painkiller oxycodone.
The warrant also said the fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, and it said police obtained medical records estimating Moore had been pregnant for 22 to 24 weeks. The warrant cited the medical staff’s “knowledge that the baby had a beating heart and was struggling to breathe,” according to AP’s summary of the document.
While the bond decision placed Moore on release terms for the homicide count, the next steps depend on whether the state pursues the charge through indictment. In order to send Moore to trial for murder, the district attorney’s office would first need to obtain an indictment from a grand jury, the Associated Press reported.