A Georgia woman is facing a murder charge in the death of a five-and-a-halfmonth-old fetus she delivered after she allegedly took

a pill that terminated her

pregnancy.

Officials have charged Kenlissia Jones, 23, of Albany, Georgia, with malice
murder and possession of a dangerous drug, according to local news reports.
She was arrested on Saturday night after giving birth to the fetus in a car on
the way to the hospital and taken to nearby Dougherty County jail, where she
is being held without bond.

Pro-choice advocates said there was no abortion clinic nearby and that initial
reports of the young womans arrest were deeply disturbing in the wake of
so-called feticide killing a fetus laws sweeping the US.

According to a police report viewed by the Guardian, a county social services

worker called Albany police to the hospital, and told officers that Jones ingested
four pills she purchased online to induce labor. The social services worker
told the police Jones wished to end her pregnancy because she and her
boyfriend had broken up.

Joness neighbor drove her to the hospital, but she gave birth to the fetus
before they arrived. Officials said the fetus died at the hospital about half an
hour after she gave birth, according to the report, which did not indicate how
far along Jones was in her pregnancy.

WALB-TV reported earlier that authorities had said the woman was five and a
half months pregnant.

The Dougherty County district attorney, Greg Edwards, reportedly said the case
is likely to be presented to a grand jury, and that prosecutors needed time to
explore their options under state and federal law.

Albany police refused to answer questions about the case, citing an open
investigation and directing all calls to the Dougherty County district attorneys
office. The office did not return multiple requests for comment by the Guardian.

If women do not have the means to access medical care, they will take
matters into their own hands, with tragic consequences, said Jaime Chandra, a
spokeswoman for the Feminist Womens Health Center in Atlanta.

More than 50% of women in Georgia live in a county with no abortion clinic,
and this is true of Dougherty County and nearly all of south-west Georgia,
according to the Health Center.

Cytotec, a misoprostol drug, can be used in combination with another drug

mifepristone to end a pregnancy non-surgically, a method known as medical
abortion. It was not immediately clear to the Guardian whether Jones took the
first pill, or only Cytotec, which by itself is not considered a so-called abortion
pill.

There were 28 abortion providers in Georgia in 2011, down from 32 in 2008,

according to the Guttmacher Institute. A full 96% of counties in the state had
no abortion clinic in 2011, which would require more than half of all Georgia
women to travel outside their county to receive an abortion. Chandra said she
is unaware of an abortion clinic in or around Albany.

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Elizabeth Nash, a state policy expert at the Guttmacher Institute, said reports
on the Georgia case were deeply disturbing and that she was alarmed at
what appears to be a spike in the number of cases in which women are charged
with crimes for self-aborting their fetus. Criminalizing abortion discourages
women from seeking the medical care they may need, she said.

You could imagine a woman might not go to the hospital if she thinks she is
going to be arrested, Nash said.

Currently, at least 38 US states including Georgia have fetal homicide laws,

according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The first person
convicted in the US under such a law is Purvi Patel, an Indiana woman serving
20 years in prison for ending her own pregnancy using abortion drugs in July
2013.

In Georgia, the penalty for feticide is life in prison.

The woman wasnt able to access healthcare when she needed it, she took
action on her own and then when she sought out healthcare she was then
arrested, Nash said. She was let down every step of the way.