Georgia woman charged with murder after police say she took pills to
induce an abortion
[March 20, 2026]
By RUSS BYNUM
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with
murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal abortion.
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 passed a 2019 law 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 “based on the medical staff’s knowledge that the baby had a
beating heart and was struggling to breathe.”
“No one should be criminalized for having an abortion,” Dana Sussman,
senior vice president of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice said in a
statement, calling Moore’s case “an unprecedented murder charge for an
alleged abortion.”
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 medication abortions, 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: “I know my infant is
suffering, because I am the one who did the abortion. I want her to
die.”
Georgia bans abortion after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected.
That’s generally at about six weeks’ gestation – before many women know
they’re 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 crimes related to their
pregnancies in the 12 months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling
that overturned Roe v. Wade 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’s 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 “a 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.”
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 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 seek murder charges
against a woman who intentionally terminates her pregnancy after
there's cardiac activity.
“Murder is intentionally causing the death of a person,” he said,
adding that he and others warned before the law passed that a mother
could be charged in a case like this.
“I’m not sure prosecutors are eager to be the first one to jump this
hurdle,” Fleishman said. “I think it’s a totally legally permissible
case. I think they could do it. I’d be surprised if they go through
with it.”
Elizabeth Edmonds, executive director of the anti-abortion Georgia
Life Alliance, said any claim that the charges stem from the 2019
abortion law is “misrepresenting the facts and trying to again make
it a fear-mongering thing that Georgia is prosecuting women on
pregnancy outcomes.”
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’s 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’t 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 misoprostol and mifepristone 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’s 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.
___
AP journalists Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Jeff
Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this story.
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