Woman faces murder charge over 'self-induced abortion': Texas official
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Christine FernandoUSA TODAY
Reproductive rights advocates are voicing their outrage after a woman in Texas was arrested and charged with murder for what law enforcement called "the death of an individual by self-induced abortion."
The Starr County Sheriff's Office in southern Texas arrested Lizelle Herrera, 26, on Thursday. It is unclear whether Herrera is accused of having a self-induced abortion or if she helped someone else get an abortion.
"Herrera was arrested and served with an indictment on the charge of Murder after Herrera did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an individual by self-induced abortion," sheriff's Maj. Carlos Delgado said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Delgado did not say under which law Herrera has been charged. Herrera remains at Starr County jail on a $500,000 bond, according to the jail's roster.
The sheriff's department and the Starr County District Attorney's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from USA TODAY.
A handful of protesters gathered outside the jail Saturday morning to demand Herrera be released.
Rockie Gonzalez, founder of Frontera Fund, the nonprofit abortion access fund that organized the protest, called the arrest "inhumane," adding in a Saturday statement that "criminalizing pregnant people's choices or pregnancy outcomes, which the state of Texas has done, takes away people's autonomy over their own bodies, and leaves them with no safe options when they choose not to become a parent."
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"We stand in solidarity with you Lizelle, if you are reading this, and we will not stand down until you are free," Gonzalez said.
Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, said in a statement to USA TODAY that she stands in solidarity with Herrera and is outraged by her arrest.
"No one should be punished for pregnancy outcomes, especially in a state that has made abortion access impossible to obtain," she said. "Make no mistake that these laws and harsh restrictions are meant to ensure that Black and brown bodies continue to be controlled by misogynistic, racist, and classist systems of oppression."
The case comes several months after Texas Senate Bill 8 was enacted in September 2021, banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in a state that has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. The law, however, does not target pregnant people themselves for prosecution and instead is enforceable by private parties who may sue abortion providers who "aid and abet" women seeking abortions.
Five states — Arizona, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Delaware and Nevada — have laws that criminalize self-managed abortions, according to February 2021 statement from If/When/How, a national network of lawyers advocating for reproductive rights. Texas does not have such a law.
However, "Even in states that have no such laws, politically-motivated police and prosecutors have tried to misuse other criminal laws to target people who self-manage abortion," the statement said.
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Gonzalez from La Frontera told Texas Public Radio that "it definitely is" the first such case that she has seen in the Rio Grande Valley.
But a report from If/When/How said the organization found 18 arrests of people nationwide who ended their own pregnancies or of those who supported them.
"One thing is consistent through all of these cases: when a prosecutor wants to punish someone, they will find a way to do it," the report said, adding that in many cases, the charges were based on antiquated laws or laws that were meant to protect pregnant people in the wake of high-profile, violent attacks against pregnant women.
While courts have typically sided with people facing charges related to self-induced abortions, there are about 40 types of laws prosecutors "may wield against people who end their own pregnancies and those who help them," according to the If/When/How report.
In 2015, a murder charge was dropped against a 23-year-old Georgia woman who was accused of taking abortion pills to end a pregnancy. Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards dismissed the charge on the grounds that "criminal prosecution of a pregnant woman for her own actions against her unborn child does not seem permitted," the Washington Post reported.
The same year, an Indiana woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of feticide and child neglect for taking abortion-inducing drugs. A state appeals court later overturned both convictions, finding that Indiana's feticide law wasn't meant to be used to prosecute women for their own abortions.
Years before, Chinese American woman in Indiana was charged with murder and attempted feticide in 2011 after a failed suicide attempt resulted in a miscarriage. Those charges were dropped in 2013.
These types of arrests disproportionately target low-income women and women of color, according to another If/When/How report.
"These women are the ones most likely to have factors — such as a lack of money, childcare, transportation, or legal immigrant status, or a mistrust of the medical system — that push or pull them toward self-induced abortion," the report said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.
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I am curious under what law she would be prosecuted - especially if this was her own pregnancy she was terminating. The recent anti-abortion law enacted in Texas does not cover self-induced abortions, nor does pre-existing Texas law.
I wouldn't be surprised if Texas would charge a woman with murder if she accidentally fell down the stairs and caused a miscarriage.
Nobody accidently falls down in Texas.
s/
I have both fallen down and up some stairs, both resulting in injuries.
Falling up some stairs defies the law of gravity.
I face planted the old toilet I put on the porch, breaking my nose for the 7th time.
I would move the toilet....
Ouch, I got shivers just reading that.
Hind sight being 20/20, I really should have.
I have to ask, why did you have an old toilet on the porch ?
It wasn't too many years ago that a state legislator in Georgia tried to do exactly that.
No one is going to put a new toilet on the porch.
Taking into consideration the proliferation of anti-abortion laws being passed these days I don't think anyone should be surprised if that kind of proposal might soon happen again.
What really kills me is the fact that, while this is going on right in front of us, those who raise the alarm about the threat to abortion rights are accused of fearmongering. Meanwhile, we have Bobby Franklin (now dead, and I am heartily glad of it) actually wanting to execute women who suffer miscarriage, some dumbass in Ohio wanting to prosecute doctors who abort ectopic pregnancies rather than try to implant them in the uterus (currently not a medical possibility), and women in Texas, Georgia, and Indiana actually being arrested for both legal abortions and miscarriages.
It's starting to be pretty clear that there is a vocal and powerful minority among conservatives who actually hate women, and who are using the power of the state to persecute them for being the victims of biology sometimes gone wrong.
What 'kills' me is girls can't get the support from WOMEN to get these dumbass conservative politicians out of their private parts! Sorry, I am angry at all of this! Sometimes it seems to me, that women, fall short of getting what justifiably their rights to possess! Why the 'CLUCK" are women allowing themselves to be commanded to have babies they don't want in the so-called 'land of the free'?
Internalized misogyny. There are some women, unfortunately, who buy into the idea that women are less than, are created primarily to make babies and serve men. If you're on Facebook, check out the page "The Transformed Wife." It's pretty scary, and it's also scary just how many women agree with her.
I am not on Facebook. I walked away years ago. I will make an attempt to see the page without establishing membership, nevertheless. Okay, I can see it without a membership. Checking it out!
Somehow, I think cases like this one will not be an isolated case. It's sad we've reached the point where women are vilified or arrested for having an abortion or miscarriage or whatever. It's like we've devolved into some medieval third world country with draconian laws. Even sadder that some people are apparently ok with that too.
Exactly, in California, a 29-year-old woman went to a hospital in labor several weeks early. Seven of her previous nine children had been born on methamphetamine.
Doctors detected no fetal heartbeat and she tested positive for methamphetamine. After her baby boy was delivered stillborn she was arrested and charged with murder. She pleaded guilty to “manslaughter of a fetus” and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
A charge which does NOT exist in California law and a plea she filed an appeal for her conviction to be overturned.
Oh good deal, thanks for the update. I hope she gets out soon, those nine children need their mother.
Like you say I'm not sure there is any violation of criminal law but the publication of her deed may open the door for others to file civil suits?
It would seem to be a murder charge, the tricky part being when does the individual become an individual... Texas says it is "gleam in the eye stage"
Whenever these conservatives decide to call the "gleam" an individual is the point that "personhood" is invoked and a child, even to a foreign woman visiting the U.S. becomes a U.S. citizen.
So...before the act of what causes pregnancy has yet to commence. Whew! That's some dumbass thinking right there. Next they will ban condoms
That would not surprise me.
Every sperm is sacred... Monty Python
What does a Russian Alligator-class LST have in common with a used prophylactic?
They are both full of dead seman.
Senate bill 8 actually prohibits prosecution of the woman:
87(R) SB 8 - Enrolled version (texas.gov)
(b) This subchapter may not be construed to:
(1) authorize the initiation of a cause of action against or the prosecution of a woman on whom an abortion is performed or induced or attempted to be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter
So it sure looks like the Sheriff is violating the law.
Secondly, it's been reported that Herrera was in the hospital, had a miscarriage and after she said something to the hospital staff, they reported her to the police. I'm no expert in HIPPA law, but that sounds like a violation of HIPPA to me...
So she might have grounds to sue the hospital for a HIPAA violation, and the cops for false arrest.
That could get interesting.
Kinda like reporting potential spousal abuse when a battered woman shows up in the hospital claiming to have fallen down the stairs.
Not quite like, no.
Spousal abuse is a crime.
Abortion isn't.
This woman's medical condition was revealed to those who didn't have a reason to know, because she was suspected of having done something that is legal.
If Texas wants to pay the "let's all sue everybody over abortion" game, she should fight fire with fire.
Wasn't she originally charged with murder under a feticide law?
Especially since the DA presented the case to a grand jury an got an indictment.
If they didn't cite SB8 to the grand jury, under WHAT law did all of that happen?
The DA had MONTHS to review the law prior to the arrest.
One would think if an existing law other than SB8 was cited and charged, WHY is this the first time it's being prosecuted and reported on?
I thought that the grand jury charge was murder, not SB 8.
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 1.07 relates to the death of or injury to an unborn child and provides penalties. The law defines an individual as a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.
First you stated it as fact, now you thought it, yet you've haven't posted a link to prove it.
BTW, your statement fails to answer my question.
First you stated it as fact, now you thought it,
I was trying to be polite in the face of you inability or unwillingness to review numerous accounts.
Please refrain from connecting hyperlinks to MY comments.
Yet every one of those 'numerous accounts' is repetitive and NONE of them cite that law under which Herrera was indicted.
As for Texas Penal Code Section 1.07. It contains definitions, NOT penalties. Oh and those definitions have been in place since 2003.
Here is that Texas Penal Code that is relevant:
Title 5, Chapter 19 [Criminal Homocide]
Sec. 19.06
Applicability to Certain Conduct
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
So my question remains:
One would think if an existing law other than SB8 was cited and charged, WHY is this the first time it's being prosecuted and reported on?
Will the Texas authorities subpoena the zygote as a witness?
Does Texas have a "fetiscide law"? Does Texas consider "the developing mass" of cells a "person"?
Sounds the the definition of cancer. Look out oncologists - your next!
uh oh, no more organ removals/transplants available in texas...
Yes, as most states do. In California, a woman sits in prison after a still birth because she repeatedly took meth.
That's different. She willingly took that drug that caused the still birth. I personally have no sympathy for her. She had options
A fetus is still just a fetus.
I personally have no sympathy for her.
Well maybe not her, but think of those nine poor children, missing their mother.
That's false.
What’s false, that 38 states have feticide laws or that Adora Perez, who had a stillbirth in 2017 went to prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter?
What's false is your claim that she ' sits in prison after a still birth because she repeatedly took meth.'
As her filing states, she plead guilty to a charge that isn't a crime in California. Her lawyer, the local DA, the Judge and the Appeals Cour fucked her over. It's a fucking travesty of 'justice'.
When did she get out? Does that change the point?
Never said she did. She is filing for the prosecution to be overturned.
Yes.
Oh and BTFW, there is no evidence that her use of meth caused her miscarriage. Though AGAIN, it's irrelevant.
Never said that she did.
You wrote, “What's false is your claim that she ' sits in prison after a still birth because she repeatedly took meth.' Nothing false there.
Actually, there is. Again, you post an opinion as a fact. As I stated, there is no evidence that her use of meth caused her miscarriage.
She sits in prison because she plead guilty to a non-existent charge based on the counsel of an incompetent lawyer, an overzealous prosecutor and a clueless Judge.
In fact, it's much like the extrajudicial BS that occurred in Starr County Texas.
Next step will be declaring the manufacturers of Kleenex and hand lotion, accessories to murder.
Apparently, around 38 states have fetal homicide laws including: California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington.
How many implicate the mother ?
Depends on the mother's actions. Most exempt the mother if the death was due to a intentional abortion but not if the mother was wantonly reckless, like a drunk driving accident.
Boy! I would really appreciate you providing the specific statutes for those laws. Please link to them.
Have at it and please let us know what you find.
Have at what? You haven't provided anything except claims about such laws. I would assume that you would not make those claims as factual without having looked it up first, since that would just make you a troll. So please provide those links to the laws you referenced.
Have at what?
Have at the link I sent you. I’ll resend without embedding if that threw you.
None of them, that I saw, address charging the mother if she gets into a DUI accident.
The DA dropped the charges.
Wise move on the DA's part.
I guess Texans just don’t trust God to deliver punishment to these wicked murderers. I wonder how God feels about his most ardent supporters thinking that He is so feckless and weak that they must do his job for Him.
Unfortunately those most ardent supporters probably feel they are working under a holy mandate.
Gee, I suppose every state with a law against committing murder is guilty of the same thing, huh?
The laws are not based on religion, those people's actions are.
… like a moth to a flame.
Prove it.
The Constitutional separation of church and state and the Lemon Test precedent proves it. Specify a passed law based elusively on religion!
Hey [Deleted,] impossible to prove a negative. Which leaves it up to you to prove they were. Like that will ever happen.
W-h-a-t?
If God is going to ever have a final judgement day and if God does not approve of abortion let it be handled, then and how are they sure he cares?
What about miscarriages? Are they willing to prosecute God?
What about miscarriages? Are they willing to prosecute God?
God has a bottomless get out of jail free card for all his evil doings.
Is guessing what you do when you don't know but want to comment anyway?
Is churning out drunken riddles what you do when you’ve got nothing coherent to say but want to comment anyways?
LoL, good one.
I sorry that you feel befuddled by my enigmas and conundrums.