SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) 鈥� A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal .
If state prosecutors decide to move forward with the murder charge brought by local police against Alexia Moore, her case would be one of the first instances of a woman being charged for terminating a pregnancy in Georgia since it banning most abortions.
The arrest warrant charging Moore with murder uses language that echoes the law, saying police determined Moore had been pregnant beyond six weeks 鈥渂ased on the medical staff鈥檚 knowledge that the baby had a beating heart and was struggling to breathe.鈥�
鈥淣o one should be criminalized for having an abortion,鈥� Dana Sussman, senior vice president of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice said in a statement, calling Moore鈥檚 case 鈥渁n unprecedented murder charge for an alleged abortion.鈥�
Court records say Moore arrived at a hospital Dec. 30 complaining of abdominal pain. She told medical workers that she had taken misoprostol, a drug used in , and the opioid painkiller oxycodone, according to an arrest warrant obtained by police in Kingsland, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Savannah.
The fetus survived for about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, the warrant says. The police investigator obtaining the warrant wrote that Moore told the nursing staff: 鈥淚 know my infant is suffering, because I am the one who did the abortion. I want her to die.鈥�
after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected. That鈥檚 generally at about six weeks鈥� gestation 鈥� before many women know they鈥檙e pregnant.
Moore has been jailed in coastal Camden County since March 4 on charges of murder and illegal drug possession, according to online jail records.
More pregnant women charged with crimes since Roe was overturned
A 2024 study by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice found that at least 210 women across the U.S. were charged with in the 12 months after the U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 2022 ruling that and allowed states to enforce abortion bans.
That tally was more than the group found in any other 12 month period. Most of the cases involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy.
Moore鈥檚 mother said she had no immediate comment when reached by phone Thursday. A spokesperson for the Georgia Public Defender Council confirmed one of its attorneys is representing Moore but made no further comment.
Court records show Moore’s attorney has filed legal motions seeking a bond and a speedy trial. A court hearing was scheduled for Monday.
Ultimately, the decision on whether to prosecute Moore for murder will be left to 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.
Some had warned Georgia abortion law could lead to murder charges
The warrant said medical records estimated Moore had been pregnant for 22 to 24 weeks, placing her fetus at the threshold of viability. It refers to Moore’s fetus as 鈥渁 human being who was born alive and survived for one hour. Under Georgia law, the victim became a person at the moment of live birth.鈥�
Georgia鈥檚 abortion law states that an embryo is legally a person once cardiac activity can be detected. Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia defense attorney who is not involved in Moore’s case, said that means authorities could seek murder charges against a woman who intentionally terminates her pregnancy after there’s cardiac activity.
鈥淢urder is intentionally causing the death of a person,鈥� he said, adding that he and others warned before the law passed that a mother could be charged in a case like this.
鈥淚鈥檓 not sure prosecutors are eager to be the first one to jump this hurdle,鈥� Fleishman said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a totally legally permissible case. I think they could do it. I鈥檇 be surprised if they go through with it.鈥�
Elizabeth Edmonds, executive director of the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance, said any claim that the charges stem from the 2019 abortion law is 鈥渕isrepresenting the facts and trying to again make it a fear-mongering thing that Georgia is prosecuting women on pregnancy outcomes.鈥�
Edmonds said she believed the murder charge was appropriate in part because Moore is accused of illegally obtaining and taking oxycodone before her fetus died.
Coroner says he didn’t rule death a homicide
The warrant says a toxicology screening detected oxycodone in the fetus’ blood, but police were told the test would not be able to detect misoprostol. It says Moore told police she obtained the abortion pills online and got the opioid from a relative.
Camden County Coroner M. Wayne Peeples said Thursday that he was called to Southeast Georgia Health System鈥檚 hospital to take custody of the remains. He said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation declined to perform an autopsy, noting the fetus was delivered in a hospital.
The coroner said he didn鈥檛 rule the death as a homicide, instead finding both the cause and manner of death were undetermined.
Moore also faces charges for possessing oxycodone, a controlled drug that wasn’t prescribed to her, as well as possession of a dangerous drug for the abortion-inducing misoprostol.
The drugs together are approved for terminating pregnancies during the first 10 weeks of gestation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Misoprostol can also be used alone if mifepristone is not available. It鈥檚 also used off-label for abortion in the second trimester.
In 2024, Louisiana classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances. Similar legislation has been introduced in some other states and in Congress, but has not been adopted elsewhere.
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AP journalists Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this story.
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