A South Texas Sheriff’s Office official said Saturday that a 26-year-old woman had been charged with murder in connection with the “death of one person by a self-induced abortion.”
The woman, Lizelle Herrera, 26, was arrested Friday and held in Starr County, the officer, Major Carlos Delgado, said in a statement reported Saturday by The Associated Press. Ms. Herrera was released on bail on Saturday, according to a statement from the Frontera Fund, an abortion rights organization. Her bail was set at $500,000.
While the circumstances of the case remain unclear — the statement didn’t say whether Ms. Herrera was charged with having the abortion or aiding it, or how far along the pregnancy had been — the charges come months after the Texas legislature passed several restrictions. adopted an abortion.
The indictment also comes amid expectations that the Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and banned states from banning the procedure before a fetus is viable outside the womb. , which is currently about 23 weeks of pregnancy.
It is unclear under which statute Ms. Herrera will be charged. An abortion ban that went into effect in Texas in September, known as SB 8, bans abortion after six weeks but leaves enforcement to citizens, offering them rewards of at least $10,000 for successful lawsuits against anyone who assists or encourages”.
The Texas legislature subsequently passed another law, SB 4, which establishes a criminal offense — a state offense punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to two years in prison — for providing medical abortion pills after 49 days. pregnancy, or for health care providers who fail to comply with a series of new regulations and procedures. The law also exempts pregnant women from prosecution.
Part of the Texas Penal Code exempts expectant mothers from charges of murder in connection with “the death of an unborn child.” Most states instead target abortion providers when an abortion is considered illegal. In most of the country, abortion is banned after the fetus is viable, generally 22 to 24 weeks, although several states are taking steps to ban abortions at much earlier stages pending the overthrow of Roe.
According to Major Delgado’s statement, Ms. Herrera charged with murder after she “deliberately and knowingly” caused the death of a person through self-induced abortion.
Self-managed abortion is any abortion outside of medical care and may include the use of abortion pills. But in dangerous cases, it can also be those performed with supplements, herbs or vitamins; multiple birth control pills or emergency contraceptive pills; or physical trauma.
Herrera’s lawyer, Calixtro Villarreal, declined to be questioned on Saturday. The Starr County district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office could not be reached for comment. In his statement, Major Delgado said the prosecutor planned to release details to the news media on Monday.
While women have been arrested, imprisoned and convicted in cases of self-induced abortions, including cases where women have used drugs during pregnancy, such cases are rare and even rarely lead to convictions.
But that could change in this new political climate, as women increasingly turn to self-induced abortions, said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
“States have made it so much harder for women to get abortions from medical professionals, leaving them with the harder cure to do it themselves,” said Mr. Vladeck. He added that “these kinds of prosecutions that would have been incredibly unpopular and controversial just 10 or 15 years ago” are now gaining more support.
Jenny Ecklund, a lawyer representing the Frontera Fund and other abortion rights groups in Texas, said the indictment sent a disturbing signal to women in the state. “If a state can criminalize behavior they don’t know or understand, it puts the life of anyone who could be pregnant in the state of Texas at risk,” she said.
Kate Zernike reporting contributed. Jack Begg research contributed.
