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ABORTION Nebraska Mom Gets 2 Years in Prison After Buying Abortion Pills for Her Teen Daughter
This makes me so angry I can hardly see straight...
On Friday, a Nebraska judge sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after she bought abortion pills for her teen daughter and helped bury the fetal remains in early 2022, according to reporters from Norfolk Daily News and Courthouse News. The sentencing went forward without a court-ordered psychological evaluation that the judge canceled for lack of funding last week. Burgess had faced up to five years in prison after she accepted a plea deal. With good behavior, she could be released in a year.
Burgess pled guilty in July to three charges (tampering with human remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation) in exchange for prosecutors dropping two others (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). States have criminalized people for their pregnancy outcomes for decades—even, as in this case, while Roe v. Wade stood—but advocates worry these types of charges, against people seeking abortion and those who help them, will only become more frequent as millions of people live under state abortion bans.
“In this particular case, here’s the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska,” said Rafa Kidvai, director of If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund (the fund is not representing Burgess). Self-managed abortion is now only explicitly banned in one state, Nevada, but prosecutors can and do criminalize people for self-managed abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth by charging them under other statutes. “It doesn’t have to be [illegal]. The prosecutors are like, ‘This is illegal in my heart,’” Kidvai said.
*SNIP*
Emma Roth, staff attorney with Pregnancy Justice, told Jezebel in July after Celeste was sentenced to jail time for concealing or abandoning a dead body that it’s clear prosecutors will “stretch laws far beyond their intended scope” in order to charge people. “They’re desperate to file some kind of charge to ensure that they criminalize what they view as immoral behavior,” she said. (Celeste, who was charged as an adult, pled guilty to a felony charge in exchange for getting two other charges dropped. She was sentenced in July to 90 days in jail and two years’ probation, and was released last Monday after serving 53 days.)
Burgess pled guilty in July to three charges (tampering with human remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation) in exchange for prosecutors dropping two others (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). States have criminalized people for their pregnancy outcomes for decades—even, as in this case, while Roe v. Wade stood—but advocates worry these types of charges, against people seeking abortion and those who help them, will only become more frequent as millions of people live under state abortion bans.
“In this particular case, here’s the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska,” said Rafa Kidvai, director of If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund (the fund is not representing Burgess). Self-managed abortion is now only explicitly banned in one state, Nevada, but prosecutors can and do criminalize people for self-managed abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth by charging them under other statutes. “It doesn’t have to be [illegal]. The prosecutors are like, ‘This is illegal in my heart,’” Kidvai said.
*SNIP*
Emma Roth, staff attorney with Pregnancy Justice, told Jezebel in July after Celeste was sentenced to jail time for concealing or abandoning a dead body that it’s clear prosecutors will “stretch laws far beyond their intended scope” in order to charge people. “They’re desperate to file some kind of charge to ensure that they criminalize what they view as immoral behavior,” she said. (Celeste, who was charged as an adult, pled guilty to a felony charge in exchange for getting two other charges dropped. She was sentenced in July to 90 days in jail and two years’ probation, and was released last Monday after serving 53 days.)
More: https://jezebel.com/nebraska-abortion-case-mom-sentenced-1850864511
Cross posted to General Discussion.