US woman charged with fetal homicide after allegedly inducing own abortion | Kentucky
A Kentucky woman is facing multiple charges for allegedly having an abortion using medication.
Kentucky state police arrested a 35-year-old woman, Melinda S Spencer, on charges of first-degree fetal murder, maltreatment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. accordingly A local Kentucky news source. Spencer reportedly ordered medication online to terminate her pregnancy, then buried the remains of her pregnancy in her backyard.
It’s unclear how far along Spencer’s pregnancy was at the time of the alleged abortion, although police described the fetus as “developed,” according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. reported.
Jail records show Spencer was booked into a prison in Beattyville, Kentucky, on Thursday. He remained in prison since Friday evening.
Kentucky prohibits doctors from performing abortions at any time after pregnancy. But like the vast majority of states, Kentucky does not prohibit people from initiating or “self-directing” their own abortions. Medical experts also widely agree that it is safe to self-manage an abortion using the pill during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Ordering abortion pills online has become increasingly common since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, setting off a wave of state-level abortion bans in 2022. By the end of 2024, one in four abortions involved providers counseling patients online and then sending them abortion pills. Tens of thousands of these abortions occurred in states where abortion is prohibited. data From the research group #WeCount.
Yet women have repeatedly faced punitive consequences for pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriages. Researchers at the reproductive justice group Pregnancy Justice found that 412 people were prosecuted for pregnancy-related crimes in the two years after Karaca’s miscarriage. to create.
Sixteen of those prosecutions involved murder charges, while seven involved charges of what investigators called “conduct related to indecent conduct related to birth or death.” It is unclear how many cases may have stemmed from authorities’ suspicion that the defendant had an abortion; because only nine cases involved accusations of performing, attempting, or investigating an abortion.
Abortion rights advocates see efforts to criminalize pregnancy outcomes as part of an overarching campaign to establish “fetal personhood,” a legal doctrine that grants embryos and fetuses full legal rights and protections; This is to the point where the rights of the fetus may compete with the rights of the woman carrying it.
“The idea that a fetus can be a person and the victim of a crime is used in important ways when there is pregnancy loss,” University of Tennessee law professor Wendy Bach told the Guardian in 2024. “So instead of meeting pregnancy loss with care, support, and acceptance, which often includes tragic life circumstances, we meet it with criminal suspicion, criminal investigation, and prosecution.”
Police in Georgia arrested a woman who was found bloodied and unconscious after a miscarriage. Another woman in Ohio was arrested after miscarrying in a bathroom stall. Both cases were ultimately dropped.
Kentucky police reportedly became involved in Spencer’s case after Spencer talked to clinic staff about her pregnancy. In cases where people are criminalized for pregnancy outcomes, it is often healthcare professionals who report to police: 264 of the 412 such cases uncovered by Pregnancy Justice involved information disclosed in a medical setting.
A person who answered the phone at Kentucky State Police said there was no one available to comment on Spencer’s case because of recent holidays. A prison official said Spencer was advised by his attorney not to talk to the media or law enforcement. Spencer’s attorney was not ready to speak immediately.
