No mercy for women

Created
Sun, 23/07/2023 - 03:30
Updated
Sun, 23/07/2023 - 03:30
It’s going to get worse: A Nebraska teenager who used abortion pills to terminate her pregnancy was sentenced on Thursday to 90 days in jail after she pleaded guilty earlier this year to illegally concealing human remains. The teenager, Celeste Burgess, 19, and her mother, Jessica Burgess, 42, were charged last year after the police obtained their private Facebook messages, which showed them discussing plans to end the pregnancy and “burn the evidence.” Prosecutors said the mother had ordered abortion pills online and had given them to her daughter in April 2022, when Celeste Burgess was 17 and in the beginning of the third trimester of her pregnancy. The two then buried the fetal remains themselves, the police said. Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to violating Nebraska’s abortion law, furnishing false information to a law enforcement officer and removing or concealing human skeletal remains. She faces up to five years in prison at her sentencing on Sept. 22, according to Joseph Smith, the top prosecutor in Madison County, Neb. The police investigation into the Burgesses began before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. But the case gained greater attention after the court issued the ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, fueling fears that women, and those who help them, could be prosecuted for abortions, and that their private communications could be used against them. At the time, Nebraska banned abortion after 20 weeks from conception. In May, Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed a 12-week ban into law. Greer…