OMAHA, NEBRASKA — A Nebraska woman has been charged with helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after investigators obtained Facebook messages in which the two discussed using medication to induce an abortion and plans to burn the fetus afterward.
The prosecutor handling the case said it’s the first time he has charged anyone for illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks, a restriction that was passed in 2010. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, states weren’t allowed to enforce abortion bans until the point at which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks.
In one of the Facebook messages, Jessica Burgess, 41, tells her then 17-year-old daughter that she has obtained abortion pills for her and gives her instructions on how to take them to end the pregnancy.
The daughter, meanwhile, “talks about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body,” a detective wrote in court documents. “I will finally be able to wear jeans,” […]
This is actually part of a larger trend. With the advent of nationwide electronic medical records (e.g. Eric, Cerner, Allscripts, etc…) a patient in one state can obtain a legal procedure but be prosecuted in another State where that same procedure is illegal. I predict that you will start seeing State officials accessing nationwide Electronic Medical Records for this purpose. It will place great strain on the trust between patients and their physicians as what you tell your physician in the contact of medical care in one State can be used against you in a criminal context within your home State.