Nebraska girl jailed for using abortion pills

On July 20, 19-year-old Celeste Burgess from Nebraska, who used abortion pills, was sentenced to 90 days in prison. Earlier this year, she pleaded guilty to illegally hiding human remains. NewYorkTimes.

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The teenager, Celeste Burgess, 19, and her mother, Jessica Burgess, 42, were charged last year. The police received their Facebook private messages discussing plans to terminate the pregnancy and "burn the evidence".

How the business developed

In late April 2022, police in Norfolk, Nebraska began looking into "fears" that a 17-year-old girl had prematurely delivered a stillborn baby and that she and her mother had buried it, according to court documents.

The detective produced medical records in court showing that the teenage girl was pregnant with a due date of July 3. When he interrogated the Burgesses, they said the baby was stillborn in the tub and showed him where he was buried.

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The detective said he later learned that the women actually buried the remains and then dug them up, took them to the north of the city and buried them again. Finally, they transferred the remains for the third time.

At one point, the man who helped them told the police that the women were trying to burn the fetus. The remains were exhumed and showed signs of "thermal damage," the detective wrote.

The detective received a warrant for all the correspondence that the mother and daughter exchanged on Facebook Messenger. He found evidence of medical abortion there, writing that the daughter "talks about how she can't wait to get that 'thing' out of her body."

Prosecutors said the mother ordered the abortion pills online and gave them to her daughter in April 2022, when Celeste Burgess was 17. Then the girl was at the beginning of the third trimester of her pregnancy. Then they themselves buried the remains of the fetus.

Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to violating the Nebraska abortion law, providing false information to a law enforcement officer, and removing or hiding human skeletal remains. She faces up to five years in prison, according to Joseph Smith, chief prosecutor of Madison County, Nebraska.

An act of desperation

The police investigation into the Burgesses began before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

But the case gained more attention after the court ruled Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The decision raised fears that women and those who help them could be prosecuted for abortions and that their private messages could be used against them.

At the time, Nebraska banned abortion after 20 weeks of conception. In May, Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed into law a 12-week ban.

Greer Donley, professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, said in an interview that the case was "a harbinger of things to come." A number of Republican-led states have introduced restrictions on abortion. This increased the number of women in those states who were looking for abortion pills as a workaround.

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"This case is really sad because people resort to things like this when they are really desperate," Professor Donley said. “And what drives people to despair are the abortion bans.”

Nebraska Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, praised prosecutors for enforcing Nebraska's 20-week law.

Chief Executive Sandy Danek said in an interview last year that liability should be extended to suppliers who ship abortion pills to states like Nebraska, which require a doctor's presence to supervise medical abortions.

“This worrisome act may become more widespread as the abortion industry continues to promote do-it-yourself abortions, where there is no medical oversight for risks and complications,” she said.

Celeste Burgess used the abortion pill well after the FDA-approved 10 weeks, prosecutors said.

Court records show she was 30 weeks pregnant when she terminated it. Weeks 23–24 is generally considered the viability point when the fetus is most likely to be able to live outside the uterus.

The vast majority of abortions in the US occur in the first 13 weeks.

Prosecutors have not filed charges against Celeste Burgess under Nebraska's abortion law. In May, she pleaded guilty to removing or hiding human skeletal remains, a felony. Prosecutors agreed to drop two misdemeanor charges against her: covering up the death and false reporting.

In addition to 90 days in prison, she was given a two-year suspended sentence. The county public defender's office, which represented her, declined to comment on July 20.

Smith, the prosecutor, said the sentence "feels reasonable" as Celeste Burgess had no criminal record. He said the case was the first abortion-related case he had prosecuted in his 33 years.

“This is a painful case for everyone,” he said. “And I’m glad it’s over.”

Smith noted that the case was not started as an illegal abortion investigation.

Elizabeth Ling, senior adviser to the If/When/How Helpline, an abortion rights group, strongly criticized the prosecution, saying it "exacerbates the climate of fear that keeps people from seeking medical care," including medical abortion.

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“I am dismayed and appalled that while self-abortion is not illegal in Nebraska, prosecutors have decided to punish the girl by wrongfully using their laws against her for allegedly terminating her own pregnancy,” the statement said.

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