- A Texas woman was arrested for murder after ending her pregnancy.
- A judge threw out her case due to having no legal merit.
- There is no law in Texas that criminalizes a person trying to end their pregnancy.
A Texas judge has dismissed the murder charge against a woman in Texas who had her pregnancy terminated.
The woman was indicted for murder over a self-induced abortion and was arrested last Thursday and detained in Starr County on a $500,000 bond.
She was released Saturday, according to the abortion advocacy organization Frontera Fund.
Reproductive rights advocates say the allegations were an attempt to scare pregnant people in Texas who want or need an abortion.
There was no legal basis for this case, as pregnant people are exempt from prosecution if they receive an abortion.
Patients are not required to disclose medical information to medical providers, and there’s no evidence that healthcare providers are required to inform authorities about a self-managed abortion, even if it’s illegal in the state.
“We should be protecting pregnant people and those who need abortions, not shaming them for accessing the care that they need,” Rev. Katey Zeh, the CEO of the pro-choice organization Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told Healthline.
Many states require reporting of certain crimes, such as child abuse or elder abuse. In Texas, under the Failure to Report Felony law, only crimes that have resulted in serious bodily injury or death needs to be reported.
According to Elizabeth Ling, a senior helpline counsel with the reproductive justice firm If/When/How, people are regularly criminalized for all kinds of pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriages.
“That is because abortion restrictions are intentionally designed to stigmatize and create confusion about the legality of ending a pregnancy,” Ling said.
Mandatory reporting obligations for healthcare providers vary from state to state.
Lauren Paulk, senior research counsel with If/When/How, says their research shows that regardless of the legality of abortion, there are no instances in which a healthcare professional must report a self-managed abortion to authorities.
“However, thus far, we have not found any examples of a state law that would require a healthcare provider to report a patient who has self-managed an abortion to healthcare authorities,” says Paulk.
Paulk says Texas does not require healthcare providers to report patients to law enforcement for self-managing an abortion.
Some people might wonder if
But, HIPAA contains an exception for information needed for law enforcement purposes, according to Jessie Hill, JD, a constitutional law professor at Case Western Reserve University specializing in reproductive health rights.
The exemption essentially allows healthcare providers to disclose a patient’s medical info if it’s requested by law enforcement.
“We believe that healthcare providers reporting their patients to the authorities unnecessarily to be a grave violation of provider-patient confidentiality,” Paulk said, adding that If/When/How is continuing to research whether doing would be a HIPAA violation.
Texas currently prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and incentivizes citizens to press charges against anyone who helps a pregnant person receive an abortion.
“In this case, it was healthcare workers who broke the trust and violated the privacy of their patient who confided in them about her abortion while seeking medical care,” Zeh said.
According to Hill, when abortions are penalized and stigmatized, pregnant people can be blamed for adverse pregnancy outcomes, and certain healthcare providers may think legal action is necessary.
This creates a dangerous environment where pregnant people will refrain from seeking out necessary healthcare.
“Given the U.S. already has a maternal mortality rate that’s higher than any other industrialized country, that’s very troubling,” Hill said.
As more conservative states pass abortion restrictions, some reproductive health advocates expect similar events to follow across the country.
“I think this prosecution was a natural progression from extreme abortion bans and the hysterical rhetoric that describes abortion as murder. It’s also a sign of what’s to come,” says Hill.
It’s important to recognize the psychological impact this can have on pregnant people seeking an abortion and reproductive healthcare.
“Even though the charges have been dropped, they never should have been brought in the first place, and it does nothing to heal the trauma that she has endured, from the arrest itself to having her name and story in the national spotlight,” Zeh said.
A Texas judge has dismissed the murder charge against a woman in Texas who had her pregnancy terminated. Patients are not required to disclose medical information to medical providers, and there’s no evidence that healthcare providers are required to inform authorities about a self-managed abortion, even if it’s illegal in the state.