A Georgia murder case that grew out of an at-home abortion attempt may be on shaky ground. A judge on Monday set bail at $1 for 31-year-old Alexia Moore, who was arrested two months after she took pills she'd purchased online, went into labor, and delivered a second-trimester baby who died about an hour after birth, per the New York Times. "I think that charge is extremely problematic," Superior Court Judge Steven G. Blackerby said of the murder count, saying it would be "hard" to win a conviction.
Moore's case lands in the gray areas created since Roe v. Wade was overturned: Georgia bans most abortions after roughly six weeks, but lawmakers have largely avoided criminally targeting pregnant women themselves. Prosecutors say they didn't advise police to pursue the murder charge and haven't yet secured an indictment. Legal experts note Moore is accused of ending a pregnancy, not killing a newborn after birth, a distinction central to homicide law. The coroner in the case says he didn't consider the case to be a homicide, instead noting that both the cause and manner of death were undetermined, per the AP.
Moore also faces drug-possession charges tied to misoprostol and oxycodone. Her public defenders say the abortion medication was legally prescribed via an online pharmacy, per the Times; as for the oxy, police say Moore acquired it from a relative, reports USA Today. Her family, stunned by the arrest, said they were simply "praying" as they waited for her release, per the Times. "No one should be criminalized for having an abortion," Dana Sussman of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice tells the AP, calling the case an "unprecedented" one.
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