A Nebraska lady has been charged with assisting her adolescent daughter in terminating her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after detectives discovered Facebook communications in which the two discussed taking medicine to induce an abortion and then burning the fetus.
The prosecutor in charge of the case said that this is the first time he has prosecuted someone with unlawfully executing an abortion beyond 20 weeks, a limitation enacted in 2010. Before the United States Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June, states could not enforce abortion laws until a baby is deemed viable outside the womb, which is about 24 weeks.
Jessica Burgess, 41, informs her then-17-year-old daughter in one of the Facebook chats that she has purchased abortion pills for her and offers her directions on how to take them to terminate the pregnancy.
Meanwhile, the daughter “talks about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body,” according to court records. In one of the texts, she states, “I will finally be able to wear jeans.” The texts were discovered by law enforcement through a search warrant, and some of them were revealed in court records.
In early June, the mother and daughter were charged with a single felony, removing, hiding, or abandoning a corpse, and two misdemeanors, concealing another person’s death and false reporting. The criminal abortion-related charges against the mother were added approximately a month later, when detectives studied the private Facebook chats. At the request of prosecutors, the daughter, who is now 18, is being prosecuted as an adult.
According to CBS Omaha affiliate KMTV, both have pled not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Burgess’ attorney did not immediately reply to a message left on Tuesday, and the daughter’s public defender refused to comment.
When they were originally interrogated, the two informed detectives that the adolescent had suddenly given birth to a stillborn baby in the shower on April 22. They claimed to have wrapped the fetus in a bag and placed it in a box in the back of their van before driving several miles north of town and burying the corpse with the assistance of a 22-year-old male.
The guy, who The Associated Press is not naming because he is merely charged with a misdemeanor, has pleaded no guilty to assisting in the burying of the fetus on rural property owned by his parents north of Norfolk in northeast Nebraska. He is scheduled for sentencing later this month.
According to court records, the fetus had “thermal burns” and the guy informed police that the mother and daughter had burned it. He further said that the daughter verified to her mother on Facebook that the two would “destroy the evidence thereafter.” The fetus was more over 23 weeks old, according to medical documents, the investigator noted.
Burgess eventually confessed to investigators that he purchased the abortion drugs “for the aim of inducing a miscarriage.”
Both mother and daughter first claimed they couldn’t recall the day of the stillbirth, but the investigator claims the daughter eventually verified the date by reviewing her Facebook conversations. He then applied for the warrant, he claimed.
Madison County Attorney Joseph Smith told the Lincoln Journal Star that in his 32 years as county prosecutor, he has never pursued charges connected to unlawful abortions. On Tuesday, he did not immediately reply to an AP message.
From 2006 to 2020, the abortion rights advocacy organization National Advocates for Pregnant Women discovered 1,331 arrests or detentions of women for offences linked to their pregnancy.
In addition to its existing 20-week abortion prohibition, Nebraska attempted – but failed – to adopt a so-called trigger bill earlier this year, which would have prohibited all abortions if the United States Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade.
A Facebook spokeswoman refused to comment on the specifics of this instance, but the firm previously said that authorities “carefully analyze every government request we receive to ensure it is legally genuine.”
Facebook says it will oppose requests it believes are incorrect or overbroad, but the firm says it provided information to investigators 88% of the 59,996 times the government sought data in the second half of last year.