Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We are over a year out now from the overturning of Roe v. Wade. As more states enact abortion restrictions and bans, we're still finding out what that means for people who still seek out abortions in those places. Here is an extreme and frightening example. Last month, a 19-year-old named Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days in jail after she pleaded guilty to concealing or abandoning a dead body.

This happened after she had a self-managed medication abortion. Andrea González-Ramírez is covering the story. She's a senior writer at The Cut which is part of New York Magazine and has written and reported on abortion across the US, and is going to take us through what this case is and what the implications for others might be. Andrea, thanks so much for coming on the show. Welcome to WNYC.

Andrea: Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Can you give us some of the basics first of what happened? I see that both Celeste and her mother, Jessica were originally charged back in April of 2022 which would've been before the Dobbs decision. What happened in April of 2022?

Andrea: This case took place before Roe was overturned. In late April, police in the town of Norfolk, Nebraska investigated Jessica who was then 41, and Celeste who was 17 for mishandling human remains. Basically, the detectives have received this tip that Celeste had a stillbirth and that her mom helped her secretly bury the fetus. At that point-

Brian Lehrer: This is Norfolk, Nebraska, right?

Andrea: In Nebraska, yes. At this point, it had nothing to do with abortion. Police did not know that Celeste had self-managed at home. They just had this information that she had had a stillbirth and secretly buried the fetus. In the course of the investigation, they received a tip that she had actually taken abortion pills to cause a miscarriage. It seems like one of Celeste's friends reported this to the police when in June of 2022 Jessica and Celeste were charged for the mishandling of these human remains. This completely changed the investigation.

Police were able to obtain a warrant. Do you see their private Facebook messages? Meta turned over this chat to the police that basically showed Jessica and Celeste talking about obtaining this medication, taking this medication, hiding the evidence. At that point, they got different charges. This trial was supposed to take place last fall. It kept being pushed and pushed and pushed until this spring where Celeste who was being tried as an adult, plead guilty. Last month, Jessica, her mom also plead guilty to charges connected to the self-managed abortion.

Brian Lehrer: She wasn't charged with a crime for having an abortion, for taking the abortion pill or pills?

Andrea: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: She was charged for what she did with the fetus afterwards?

Andrea: Correct, yes. Self-managed abortion is only explicitly illegal in two states, South Carolina and Nevada. What happened in this instance in Nebraska was that Celeste was charged with one felony charge of concealing or abandoning a dead body. Prosecutors dropped the other two misdemeanor charges in exchange for her pleading guilty. Her mom, however, because she assisted Celeste was charged with providing an illegal abortion.

False reporting and tempering of human skeletal remains. She also pleaded guilty last month. The reason the prosecutors were able to charge her with that, is that at the time Nebraska outlawed terminating a pregnancy after 20 weeks. In that instance, her mom was able to be charged for the abortion because she assisted Celeste, but Celeste herself could not be charged for terminating her own pregnancy.

Brian Lehrer: How many weeks pregnant was she?

Andrea: This has been a big point of contention in this case. Celeste was around 29 weeks pregnant, which meant that she was in the third trimester. This is way past when people usually take medication to terminate their pregnancies. I think that Celeste has said in court when she was about to be sentenced that she was actually in an abusive relationship and did not want to parent a child with her then partner. This seemed to have played a role in why they terminated their pregnancy so late.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think the implications are here for other women and girls in the United States who do medication abortions in states where it's illegal? How much do you think this case is an outlier because of various of the circumstances you were just describing?

Andrea: As I said, only two states explicitly ban self-managed abortion, but that has not really stopped oversell as prosecutors from going after abortion seekers and pregnant people in the past. I think that Pregnancy Justice which is this legal organization did some research that found that between 2006 and 2020, more than 1300 women were prosecuted or faced mandatory medical interrogation for behavior that authorities said was risky during their pregnancies.

Also, this other organization called If/When/How did some research that found that between 2000, 2020 at least 61 people were investigated, arrested, or charged for allegedly self-managing their abortions. That's likely an undercount. Even when Roe was still the law of the land like we saw this trend of prosecutors usually using charges in connection with an abortion, but that were not about abortion themselves.

Mishandling of human, remains concealment of a birth, like practicing medicine without another license, child abuse, murder, you name it, and this statutes again have nothing to do with abortion. That was not in the law at all or pregnancy outcomes, but they're often used to punish usually women who self-managed even if they're outside those two states that criminalize ending your own pregnancy.

Brian Lehrer: The implications here for the way the mother was charged are also vast because she really was charged with assisting an illegal abortion. Presumably, anybody who gets an abortion pill for somebody in a state where that's illegal now, or a doctor who helps perform an abortion or other medical provider. They could start going to jail in large numbers, theoretically if states want to go that way, it sounds like.

Andrea: Historically measures outlawing abortion targeted providers like healthcare providers, but post jobs there's been this increased focus on so-called accomplices. Texas had this law that went into effect in September of 2021 before Roe was overturned. That basically allows anyone to sue people who help someone obtain an abortion. It was called a vigilante law in that way. Other states have followed suit with these so-called aiding and abetting laws.

For example, Idaho has a so-called abortion trafficking law which bans adults from helping a minor get the procedure without parental consent. In Oklahoma, helping someone get an illegal abortion it's outlawed and the person can be subject to prosecution. Also in Missouri, Republicans tried to make it illegal to aid or abet an abortion even if they were performed in other states, that measure did ultimately fail. There's definitely a concerted effort to again help like so-called accomplices.

Part of this is because of pills. Pre-Roe, if you controlled the providers you controlled abortion. Medication has really reshaped how people are able to access care. Even if they're in states where abortion is banned, they can use services such as Aid Access, Plan C to obtain the medication and terminate in their own home. I think because of that, there is definitely a concerted effort from the anti-abortion movement, anti-abortion politicians to try to control and prosecute people who help others terminate their pregnancies.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anybody with a comment or a question about this case? Is this the first you're hearing of it, or maybe you're familiar with it from hearing other coverage of it? Previously, this case in which a 19-year-old in Nebraska named Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days in jail after she pleaded guilty to concealing, or abandoning a dead body after she had a self-managed medication abortion, and the mother of this 19-year-old was also charged with illegally aiding an illegal abortion.

She is awaiting sentencing right now as I understand it. Our guest is Andrea González-Ramírez, who is covering the story for The Cut at New York Magazine. Anybody with a question or a reaction, 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. 212-433-9692 if you'd like to call in or text, or you can also tweet @BrianLehrer. Andrea, we do have a text from a listener who is asking you to define self-managed abortion more in-depth. Can you do that?

Andrea: Yes, of course. Self-managed abortion seems a little bit like a weird term to use, but advocates have used it for a long time. It basically means that you terminate your own pregnancy outside of a clinical setting, outside of going to an abortion provider, a healthcare provider, a hospital. This is typically done with medication. The regimen that's approved by the FDA is composed by two different medications, mifepristone and misoprostol.

They're usually taken in tandem within 24 hours of each other. The FDA recommends that you use medication abortion up until 11 or 12 weeks. There's research out there that says you can use it a little bit further in pregnancy, but the effectiveness decreases, possible complications increase [unintelligible 00:12:05] pregnancy. This has become a tool that people have used post-ops to be able to terminate their pregnancies, especially in states where abortion is currently banned.

Brian Lehrer: The mom is awaiting sentencing right now. She could go to jail for helping her 19-year-old daughter have a medication abortion.

Andrea: Yes. She is expected to be sentenced in late September, and she could serve up to two years in prison. Basically, she pleaded guilty to two charges. Provide aiding abortion, false reporting, and tempering with human skeletal remains. In exchange for her plea, prosecutors drop two charges, concealing the death of another person, and an abortion by someone other than a licensed physician. This will come up to maybe two years in prison for Jessica.

Brian Lehrer: Is anybody else in prison in the United States now as far as you know for anything like that?

Andrea: As far as I know, no, but there is a case in South Carolina involving a woman who allegedly took abortion pills to terminate her pregnancy. As I said earlier self-managed abortion is criminalized in South Carolina. Those news came out, I want to say sometime around March or April, so we're still seeing what's going to happen in that case. Again, a lot of these cases in other states do not involve explicitly charges related to abortion they're in connection to.

For example, in Texas, something that we saw last year around the same time that this happened with Celeste and Jessica was that prosecutors went after this woman, Lizelle Herrera because she had allegedly self-managed her abortion, even though Texas explicitly prohibits prosecuting abortion seekers. She was charged in-- it spent a weekend in jail. It wasn't until there was this massive outcry nationally that the charges were dropped.

We see again this often involves prosecutors who think there's a lot of stigma around abortion, and who are not necessarily criminals in just the act but a person. There's a ton of discretion that goes into the criminal legal process and with that discretion a lot of bias that plays out as a structural individual level. What we see is often these criminalization cases involve people of color, immigrants with vulnerable status, people who are low income. That thread is clearly not felt equally among us.

Brian Lehrer: Just to clarify the timeline because I may have confused it a little bit. The young woman who had the abortion she's 19 now. She went to jail for concealment of a dead body and mishandling of a dead body last month. She's 19 now. She had the abortion when she was 17, so to the extent that that distinction matters to anything, that's the timeline there. Listener tweets this question.

"Please ask, how can a dead fetus be deemed a dead human body? When a woman has a miscarriage, a death certificate is not normally issued or required for the dead fetus because it's not considered a "person." The writer puts it in quotes. "I.e. it was never a live human being. I believe a death certificate is issued only if there was a live baby i.e. if the baby drew breath." Can you answer that question?

Andrea: Yes. It goes again to the discretion that prosecutors and detectives have when they are looking into these cases. This charge of concealment or illegal disposal of human remains it's typically used for, I don't know, a homicide case where someone secretly hides the body afterwards. Hides the corpse. Prosecutors they have a ton of discretion to go after people for what they think are crimes. Celeste and Jessica's instance the information the detective had at the time was that Celeste had had a stillbirth. Because they had disposed of the fetus in a way that felt secret or weird or borderline criminal to them, they were being investigated. Again, it just boils down to discretion.

Brian Lehrer: A medication abortion isn't different physically as I understand it in terms of what happens to the fetus from a miscarriage. Maybe this is extrapolating too much, but should we be concerned that a person experiencing a miscarriage in a state with certain anti-abortion laws might also have to worry about the police looking into her data? Trying to determine if she took an abortion pill. Some of this investigation was looking at what this mother and daughter said on Facebook.

Andrea: Again, this has happened even while Roe was in place. People who've had stillbirths, who had miscarriages, have been long investigated. I think I mentioned earlier, more than 1300 women have been prosecuted in this country for what police and authorities said it was behavior risky to their pregnancies. Usually, these cases involve the use of drugs or stuff like that, that people think is damaging to the fetus. This is not necessarily new.

I think what's happened post-ops it's that there's a lot of fear among advocates that the scale of this happening might be much worse than before. I will say, however, that as concerning and scary as this is, a lot of people in this country self-managed their abortions in private without being prosecuted. Especially for those who are in states where there are abortion bans, there is a calculation that each individual person should make about the risk that they're willing to expose themselves to.

Because, yes, these cases happen and it's really concerning about how prosecutors are stretching the boundaries of the law. It is also true that a lot of people self-managed their abortions and they don't go to jail in this country. I don't want people to be alarmed. I want them to be concerned, but I don't want them to freak out beyond a level that it should be concern.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie: Hi, Brian. How are you? Thank you for this conversation. I just wanted to make a statement from a provider point of view to be clear for everyone listening. That with this case the age of pregnancy where she terminated 29 weeks is legal to do and mostly all states unless there is a lethal anomaly of the fetus or a serious condition with the mom. I think we have to look at this specific case with that in mind and that mom helped her daughter, and in fortunate circumstances gathered the medication to have a termination at their home.

Then there was a question previous to my call in which or the tweets in which disposing of the remains is illegal. Yes, in that fetus over a certain level of viability, which is 23 or 24 weeks will be considered human beings, so there's that part. Let's not lose sight of, yes, in post-Roe world that we have the criminalization of people seeking to have legal medical terminations.

As your guest is stating that it's very important not to lose sight of, and I just worry that this case can be utilized from negative forces, if you will, that are obviously seeking one for the states to retrieve medical records unlawfully or lawfully. Also, this anti-abortion forces that are seeking to just terminate the whole access to medical termination. I just want to make that statement.

Brian Lehrer: You said you're a provider?

Leslie: I'm a provider, yes. I've called before. Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hi. I'm just curious based on what you said at the beginning of your call. Would this self-administered medication abortion have been legal in New York at 29 weeks?

Leslie: No. No, because we don't terminate over 23 or 24 weeks because of viability of the fetus.

Brian Lehrer: Which was the Roe standard that New York adopted.

Leslie: Correct, and most states. 29 weeks is further long for that. When I say the point of viability that is a time in which a fetus can survive outside the womb.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie, thank you very much. Thank you for your call. I want to end on this. We have a text and a tweet, Andrea that are asking essentially the same question. The tweet says, "It takes a sperm from a man and an egg from a woman to make a baby. When are the men going to be charged and go to jail for their part in anything?" The tweet says, "Listening to the segment right now, is the abusive boyfriend being pursued criminally?" Do you happen to know?

Andrea: I don't happen to know. The information about the abusive partner did not come out until the sentencing. I really don't know if there's anything that happened on that front. To the other point, I don't expect men to be criminalized. The burden of reproductive choices has always fell on the person who carries the pregnancy and rightfully so because it's their bodies. That also means that they are the ones that are often criminalized. Yes, I don't expect men to be prosecuted anytime soon, especially in connection with cases such as this.

Brian Lehrer: Andrea González-Ramírez is a senior writer at New York Magazine's The Cut, and has written and reported on abortion across the United States. Thank you for joining us on this story.

Andrea: Thank you for having me.

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