US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills, Backwoods and Out Houses USA, The Guardian This is not horrific. It is what happens to people when there is no way out. The horrific part is the state which forces people to take any means possible. ~~~~~~~~ Jessica Burgess, a Nebraska mother accused of helping her teenage daughter use pills to end her pregnancy, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison. Burgess and her daughter, Celeste Burgess, stand accused of working together to end Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy in April 2022. According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus. At the time, Nebraska law banned abortion after 20
Topics:
Bill Haskell considers the following as important: abortion, Journalism, law, Nebraska, politics
This could be interesting, too:
Robert Skidelsky writes Speech in the House of Lords – Autumn Budget 2024
Merijn T. Knibbe writes Völkermord in Gaza. Two million deaths are in the cards.
Peter Radford writes Who brought us Trump?
NewDealdemocrat writes Real GDP for Q3 nicely positive, but long leading components mediocre to negative for the second quarter in a row
US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills, Backwoods and Out Houses USA, The Guardian
This is not horrific. It is what happens to people when there is no way out. The horrific part is the state which forces people to take any means possible.
~~~~~~~~
Jessica Burgess, a Nebraska mother accused of helping her teenage daughter use pills to end her pregnancy, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.
Burgess and her daughter, Celeste Burgess, stand accused of working together to end Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy in April 2022.
According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus. At the time, Nebraska law banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy was well past that point, according to court records.
Police say that the Burgesses buried the fetal remains. An examination of the remains suggested they may have also been burned, according to court documents.
Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to charges of false reporting, providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, and concealing, removing or abandoning a dead human body. She was sentenced to one year in prison each charge, but the sentences for false reporting and tampering with human remains will run concurrently, with the sentence for the illegal abortion to served consecutively with the sentences for the other charges, a spokesperson for the Madison county courthouse said.
Celeste Burgess also took a plea deal and was sentenced to 90 days for concealing or abandoning a dead body earlier this year.
Although the case occurred before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, it has been seen as a harbinger of how law enforcement may prosecute people for ending their own pregnancies in a post-Roe era – and how giant tech companies could go along with it.
Court documents in the case revealed that Facebook’s parent company Meta supplied police with the private Facebook messages that Celeste and Jessica Burgess had sent one another. In one message, Celeste told Jessica: “Remember we burn the evidence.”
Although most states do not ban people from inducing their own pregnancies – abortion bans typically penalize abortion providers, not patients – abortion rights advocates have long warned that if a prosecutor wants to target someone for a self-managed abortion, they will find a statute that is elastic enough to do so.
Celeste Burgess was released from Madison county jail earlier this month, after serving a little more than half of her 90-day sentence, local Nebraska news outlet KTIV reported. At her sentencing, Celeste Burgess said that her family could not have afforded a funeral for fetal remains, according to Courthouse News. (In a financial affidavit obtained by Vice, Jessica Burgess said she had $400 to her name.) Celeste Burgess also reportedly deals with multiple mental health issues and became pregnant due to an abusive relationship.
Jessica Burgess was set to undergo a court-ordered psychological evaluation ahead of her sentencing. But the evaluation was canceled due to lack of funding, according to KTIV.
Nebraska law now bans almost all abortions past 12 weeks of pregnancy.