A pro-abortion group has posted bail for a woman who is accused of murdering her newborn baby and dumping the body in an airport trash back in October 2005. The efforts of the pro-abortion legal group are reminiscent of similar efforts in El Salvador to help women who are convicted of killing their newborns.
Annie Anderson, now 51, was arrested last year after genetic genealogy tied her to the baby’s remains, which were discovered in a bathroom at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. After her arrest, Anderson confessed to dumping the baby girl, who was later named Skylar.
Anderson told police she did not know that she was pregnant when she suddenly gave birth to an allegedly stillborn child in a hotel bathroom while on a trip to Arizona from Washington. However, she then confessed to holding the baby underwater before dumping her body into the airport trash.
According to ABC, officials said that detectives began investigating after the baby was found dead and wrapped in a hotel bag in a woman’s bathroom at the airport. The FBI Phoenix Violent Crime Task Force took over the case and a medical examiner determined that baby Skylar was alive for 24 hours before dying of suffocation.
Anderson faces charges of murder in addition to child abuse and abandoning a dead body. She was kept in custody following her arrest until the pro-abortion Repro Legal Defense Fund posted her $200,000 bail in December. Repro Legal Defense Fund states on its website that it “provides financial support for people investigated or fighting charges related to their pregnancy or abortion.”
AZ Family spoke with criminal defense attorney Russ Richelsoph, who is familiar with the details of the case. He said, “It’s an interesting situation and a new twist in the case. It’s possible that the defense in this case is going to be that the medical examiner is wrong and that the baby was in fact stillborn.” He added that this is the first time he has heard of a political group posting bond in “this kind of a case.”
“I don’t know why they’ve gotten involved, and I don’t know what has been presented to them to convince them to get involved,” he said.
However, the case is very similar to some that have played out in El Salvador, where abortion is not permitted and pro-abortion groups are actively fighting to help women who have been convicted of murdering their newborns. The groups are manipulating the women’s cases in an effort to force the legalization of abortion in El Salvador.
Las17+
The media along with pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights have rallied behind a group of women in El Salvador known as Las17+, whom abortion proponents claim have been wrongly imprisoned for abortions they didn’t have. Pro-abortion groups working to legalize abortion in El Salvador have been attempting to get these women released from jail, claiming they suffered tragic miscarriages and pregnancy complications. In El Salvador, induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of preborn children — is prohibited for any reason.
However, many of these women were convicted of murdering their newborns, not of illegal abortions. There are even photographic images revealing that the babies were murdered after birth, even showing stab and strangulation wounds. Read more here.
Despite the graphic images and testimonies of witnesses regarding the murders, the pro-abortion groups argue that these women have been wrongly imprisoned for miscarriages under the nation’s pro-life law. Similar claims have been made (and debunked) in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Although abortion was legal in Arizona in 2005 and remains legal still today, Anderson’s case has the potential to further muddy the waters regarding women’s so-called “right” to kill their preborn babies.
Laws involving “pregnancy outcomes”
At least two U.S. states have laws in effect that would prohibit prosecution due to pregnancy loss, and in Michigan, Prop 3 does the same. However, some experts believe that the language of the legislation could allow babies who are born alive to be left to die or killed after birth. They feel the “pregnancy outcomes” phrasing could also allow women who discard their newborns to avoid prosecution. Expanding such laws might be Repro Legal Defense Fund’s motivation for taking Anderson’s case.
For example, California’s law, Assembly Bill 2223, states (emphases added):
Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights under this article, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.
Not only is the “pregnancy outcome” language troubling, but the bill also fails to define what is meant by “perinatal death,” leading to concerns that there would be no investigations into any newborn’s death.
Originally, the bill’s language had said, “a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.” The addition of the phrase “due to a pregnancy-related cause” was meant to alleviate those concerns, but it didn’t have that effect.
Colorado’s law, HB-1279, states that it would prohibit anyone from:
Depriving, through prosecution, punishment, or other means, an individual of the individual’s right to act or refrain from acting during the individual’s own pregnancy based on the potential, actual, or perceived impact on the pregnancy, the pregnancy’s outcomes, or on the pregnant individual’s health. (emphasis added)
Notice that the law sounds as if an individual has a right to act or not act, regardless of the “pregnancy’s outcomes” (which could reasonably include a live birth). Could this apparently massive loophole allow an individual who leaves a newborn to die by neglect (or even by active killing) to avoid prosecution of any kind?
Michigan’s Prop 3 prohibits the state from “penaliz[ing], prosecut[ing], or otherwise tak[ing] adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes.” The state is prevented from filing charges against someone because of her “pregnancy outcome.”
Nineteen-year-old Alexee Trevizo attended prom just weeks after giving birth to a baby boy and hiding him in the hospital garbage, where he suffocated and died. Like Anderson, she claimed she panicked because she didn’t know she was pregnant. Under laws that include the prevention of prosecuting someone based on their “pregnancy outcomes,” many experts believe such an act could be considered a “pregnancy outcome” — and therefore, would be legal. If she convinces a jury she didn’t know she was pregnant, would she be acquitted of killing him?
The same question now stands in Anderson’s case. Just as preborn children have been dubbed “pregnancy tissue” to dehumanize them, could dead newborns — killed or left to die by their mothers — be deemed nothing but “pregnancy outcomes”?
Editor’s Note 1/29/25: A previous version of this article included incorrect information about the abortion law in El Salvador. We regret the error.
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