Georgia woman charged with murder after police say she took pills to induce an abortion

SAVANNAH, Georgia — A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal abortion.

If prosecutors decide to move forward with local police’s murder charge against Alexia Moore, her case would be one of the first cases of a woman accused of terminating a pregnancy in Georgia since the passage of a 2019 law banning most abortions.

The arrest warrant charging Moore with murder uses language that echoes the law, saying police determined Moore was more than six weeks pregnant “based on medical personnel’s knowledge that the baby had a racing heart and was having difficulty breathing.”

“No one should be criminalized for having an abortion,” Dana Sussman, vice president of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, said in a statement, calling Moore’s case “an unprecedented murder charge over an alleged abortion.”

Court records indicate Moore arrived at the hospital Dec. 30 complaining of abdominal pain. She told medical staff that she had taken misoprostol, a drug used in medical abortions, and oxycodone, an opioid painkiller, according to an arrest warrant obtained by police in Kingsland, about 100 miles south of Savannah.

The fetus survived about an hour after being delivered at the hospital, the warrant states. The police investigator who obtained the warrant wrote that Moore told caregivers, “I know my baby is suffering, because I was the one who had the abortion. I want her to die.”

Georgia prohibits abortion once embryonic cardiac activity can be detected. This usually happens around six weeks gestation – before many women know they are 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.

A 2024 study by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice found that at least 210 women across the United States were charged with crimes related to their pregnancy in the 12 months following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Justice. Wade and authorized states to impose bans on abortion.

This figure was higher than the group found in any other 12-month period. Most cases involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy.

Moore’s mother said she had no immediate comment when contacted by phone Thursday. A spokesperson for the Georgia Public Defender Council confirmed that one of its attorneys represented Moore, but had no further comment.

Court records show Moore’s attorney filed court motions seeking bail and a speedy trial. A court hearing was scheduled for Monday.

Ultimately, the decision whether to prosecute Moore for murder will be left to Brunswick Judicial Circuit Prosecutor Keith Higgins, who will first have to obtain an indictment from a grand jury. Higgins did not immediately respond to phone and email messages.

The warrant said medical records estimated Moore was 22 to 24 weeks pregnant, placing her fetus at the threshold of viability. He refers to Moore’s fetus as “a human being born alive and surviving for one hour. Under Georgia law, the victim became a person at the time of his or her live birth.”

Georgia’s 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 bring murder charges against a woman who intentionally terminates her pregnancy after cardiac activity.

“Murder is intentionally causing the death of a person,” he said, adding that he and others had warned before the law was passed that a mother could be charged in a case like this.

“I’m not sure prosecutors are eager to be the first to jump that hurdle,” Fleishman said. “I think it’s a completely legally permissible matter. I think they could do it. I’d be surprised if they go through with it.”

Elizabeth Edmonds, executive director of the anti-abortion nonprofit Georgia Life Alliance, said any claim that the charges stem from the 2019 abortion law “distorts the facts and again attempts to scaremonger that Georgia is prosecuting women based on their pregnancy outcomes.”

Edmonds said she believed the murder charge was appropriate in part because Moore is accused of illegally obtaining and taking oxycodone before the death of her fetus.

The warrant says a toxicology test detected oxycodone in the fetus’ blood, but police were told the test would not detect misoprostol. It says Moore told police she got the abortion pills online and got the opioid from a relative.

Camden County Coroner Wayne Peeples said Thursday he was called to Southeast Georgia Health System Hospital to take custody of the remains. He said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation refused to conduct an autopsy, emphasizing that the fetus was delivered in a hospital.

The coroner said he did not rule the death a homicide, but instead concluded the cause and manner of death were undetermined.

Moore also faces charges for possession of oxycodone, a controlled drug that was not prescribed to her, as well as possession of the dangerous abortion-inducing drug misoprostol.

The drugs misoprostol and mifepristone are approved together to terminate pregnancy during the first 10 weeks of gestation by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Misoprostol can also be used alone if mifepristone is not available. It is also used off-label for abortion during the second trimester.

In 2024, Louisiana classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances. Similar legislation has been introduced in other states and in Congress, but has not passed elsewhere.

___

AP reporters Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this story.