Republicans Want to Control Your Pregnancy, Not Just Your Abortion

Nearly 1,400 prosecutions of pregnant people occurred in the 16 years leading up to Dobbs in 2022, a new Pregnancy Justice report finds.

10/9/2023
by TALLULAH COSTA, Ms. Magazine

The war on reproductive justice wages on, and the right to a safe and healthy pregnancy hangs in the balance—according to a new report “The Rise of Pregnancy Criminalization,” by Pregnancy Justice, an organization dedicated to defending “the civil and human rights of pregnant people,” and guided by a reproductive justice framework. Analyzing data from 2006 to 2022, the report offers the first and only comprehensive study of the criminalization of people for their actions while pregnant during the Roe era.

The report shows an alarming rise in pregnancy criminalization, increasing three-fold over the past 16 years. The states where fetuses are recognized as people under criminal law, as decided by state supreme courts, are also the states with the most striking data for prosecutions of pregnancy. Just five Southern states are largely responsible for this increase in arrests: Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/09/pregnancy-jail-prison-arrest-women/

USA – Abortion Snitching Is Already Sending People to Jail

In places where abortion is banned, women must rely even more on social and familial networks. But with greater reliance, comes greater risk.

8/19/2023
by MORGAN CARMEN

Last month, Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days in prison because she took abortion pills when she was 17 years old. Celeste was charged with removing, concealing or abandoning a human body; concealing the death of another; and false reporting, after burying her miscarriage with the help of her mother, Jessica.

The story of Celeste and her mother—who helped her get the pills and will be sentenced next month—went national. Most media attention centered on the local police’s access to Facebook messages between the two, and for good reason: Companies like Meta amass intimate information—including but not limited to messages, location data, browsing patterns, phone numbers and online searches—that may be accessed easily by law enforcement. This case was seen as a harbinger of intimate privacy violations to come.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/19/celeste-burgess-abortion-snitching-privacy-police-illegal/

Maltese society divided over arrest of woman who had abortion

By Alice Taylor and Spiros Sideris | EURACTIV.com and EURACTIV.gr
Jun 6, 2023

The arrest of a Maltese woman for having a medical abortion at home has divided Maltese society, with pro-choice groups calling for urgent changes to the law and staging protests, and the prime minister declaring it makes him feel ‘uncomfortable’.

Malta has a total ban on abortions, even in the case of rape, incest, or if the woman’s life is in danger. The unnamed woman reportedly took abortion pills, likely imported from abroad as they are illegal in the country, and had a medical abortion. She was subsequently arrested and given a conditional discharge.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/maltese-society-divided-over-arrest-of-woman-who-had-abortion/

06.06.2023

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Lizelle Herrera’s case highlights the misunderstood realities of abortion access, criminalization, and advocacy in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley

Cross-movement collaboration at the intersections of criminal and reproductive justice helped local organizers mobilize quickly

by Tina Vásquez
April 21st, 2022

On April 8, a small news outlet covering Texas’ Rio Grande Valley published a story that sent shockwaves through the reproductive justice movement. A woman named Lizelle Herrera was arrested April 7 by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and charged with murder for allegedly having a self-induced abortion, which is when a person chooses to perform their own abortion outside of a medical setting. According to her indictment, Herrera “intentionally and knowingly” caused “the death of an individual.” She was held at the Starr County Jail, and her bond was set at $500,000.

In the days since Herrera’s story was made public, there has been a great deal of reporting about whether her criminalization was simply “a hasty error” by a district attorney or a case that should be treated as “a warning” that “foreshadows [a] post-Roe future.” But for reproductive justice advocates in Texas who are forced to navigate some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, Herrera’s case isn’t merely a sign of what’s to come; it’s a reality that low-income women of color overwhelmingly shoulder. It’s also the inevitable result of complicated, convoluted anti-abortion laws.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/04/21/realities-navigating-texas-anti-abortion-laws/

How Grassroots Activists Forced a Texas District Attorney to Drop Murder Charges for Self-Induced Abortion

4/18/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER

On Thursday, April 7, Texas police in the Rio Grande Valley arrested a woman and charged her with murder for allegedly self-inducing an abortion last January. The Starr County Sherriff’s Department detained 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera in a jail near the Texas-Mexico border on a $500,000 bail bond.

Reproductive justice advocates in the community organized a protest at the Starr County Jail on Saturday morning and urged people to call the jail demanding the release of Herrera. Calls poured in from across the country. By Saturday afternoon, If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund paid Herrera’s bail and she was released.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/18/frontera-fund-lizelle-herrera-murder-abortion-texas-activists/

USA – If You Want to Protect Pregnant People From Arrest, Fund Red-State Clinics

Apr 13, 2022
Robin Marty, Rewire News

This past weekend, the murder charge against Lizelle Herrera, a Texas woman accused of inducing her own abortion, made national headlines. According to local activists at Frontera Fund, an abortion fund based in South Texas, Herrera’s arrest allegedly happened after she visited a hospital where, while in the process of miscarrying, she may have provided medical staff with information that made them believe she had induced her own abortion. (The charge was dropped Sunday.)

Whether or not Herrera did something to provoke a miscarriage, the reality is that her arrest and murder charge prove exactly what we have always known: Abortion opponents lie when they claim they will not investigate miscarriages, or that pregnant people will not end up in jail because of their anti-abortion laws. Just like Rosie Jiménez, who died in 1977 because she could not afford a safe abortion, South Texans have become the bellwether of the true harm of abortion bans in the United States.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/04/13/if-you-want-to-protect-pregnant-people-from-arrest-fund-red-state-clinics/

A call, a text, an apology: How an abortion arrest shook up a Texas town

The arrest and since-dropped murder charge against a 26-year-old woman stoked widespread outrage and confusion.

By Caroline Kitchener, Beth Reinhard and Alice Crites
April 13, 2022

Calixtro Villarreal’s phone rang Saturday afternoon, about 48 hours after his client, Lizelle Herrera, was arrested and charged with murder — over what local authorities alleged was a “self-induced abortion.”

It was Gocha Ramirez, the district attorney in Starr County, Tex., a remote area on the border with Mexico. Herrera should never have been charged, Ramirez told the lawyer, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/13/texas-abortion-arrest/

The Texas woman arrested for an abortion is a harbinger of what’s to come

By Paul Waldman, Columnist, Washington Post
April 11, 2022

Can you picture a United States where women who get abortions — which about a quarter of women will do at some point in their lives — are routinely arrested and imprisoned for murder? Not just one here or there, but by the hundreds or thousands?

I can’t help but wonder if whichever local law enforcement official who ordered a 26-year-old Texas woman be arrested and charged with murder after a “self-induced abortion” was getting ahead of themselves, thinking that day had already come. The district attorney will be dismissing the charges, since, for now, Texas law doesn’t allow for the prosecution of women for having an abortion, self-induced or otherwise.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/11/texas-woman-arrested-abortion/

11.04.2022

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Why was a woman in Texas arrested for an abortion?

BY JESSICA MONTOYA COGGINS, Texas Signal
APR 11, 2022

As news spread over the arrest of 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera in Starr County, there was immediate outrage and action over somebody being detained for an alleged self-induced abortion. Now that the District Attorney of Starr County filed a motion to drop those charges, one major question remains: how did this happen?

Last week, The Monitor News reported that Herrera had been arrested by the Starr County sheriff’s office for murder after an abortion that occurred in January. The sheriff’s office was alerted about Herrera from an individual at a hospital where she was receiving care. Herrera was being held on $500,000 bail.

Continued: https://texassignal.com/why-was-a-woman-in-texas-arrested-for-an-abortion/

11.04.2022

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Charges Dropped Against Texas Woman for ‘Self-Induced Illegal Abortion’: ‘Not a Criminal Matter’

Lizelle Herrera was arrested on a murder charge Thursday and detained in the Starr County jail in Rio Grande City, Texas, before she was released on a $500,000 bond on Saturday

by Shafiq Najib
April 10, 2022

A 26-year-old woman accused of committing "self-induced illegal abortion" was taken into custody on Thursday by the Starr County Sheriff's Department in Texas, however, her charge has since been dropped.

Lizelle Herrera was arrested on a murder count, according to a statement provided by Sheriff's Maj. Carlos Delgado, the Associated Press reports. She remained jailed until Saturday in Rio Grande City, Texas, when she was released on a $500,000 bond.

Continued: https://people.com/human-interest/charges-dropped-texas-woman-self-induced-illegal-abortion-lizelle-herrera/

10.04.2022