One pro-abortion group is running a campaign against Nebraska’s laws protecting preborn children from abortion after 12 weeks, touting the false claim that women are going to jail because of the state’s law.
Over the summer, the group called Free & Just started a billboard campaign in the state, with a message that read: “Women are going to jail under Nebraska’s abortion ban.” The billboards are no longer running, with some reports indicating that the vendors refused to renew the contracts after Nebraska Right to Life pointed out their inaccuracy.
However, the pro-abortion crusade continues; last week the group launched a misleading airline banner that read: “Extremist groups don’t want you to know women are going to jail under Nebraska’s abortion ban.” In reality, the crime they are referring to took place before the state’s 12-week protections were even in effect.
The statements refer to the case of Jessica Burgess and her daughter Celeste. Jessica purchased abortion pills for Celeste, who took them when she was 29 weeks pregnant. At the time of the incident, abortion was allowed up to 20 weeks in pregnancy, and the abortion pill is only FDA approved for use through 10 weeks.
Following the abortion, both mother and daughter placed the infant in a plastic bag and buried him. Evidence presented at trial showed that the child may have been born alive and later suffocated to death. In other words, not only did the women obtain an illegal abortion for a child old enough to survive outside the womb, but also broke other laws to conceal their actions — and may have even committed infanticide.
Celeste was found guilty of concealing or abandoning a dead body, while Jessica was convicted of “providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, false reporting, and tampering with human skeletal remains.”
The newer 12-week Nebraska law (again, not in effect at the time these crimes were committed) does not punish women who undergo illegal abortions. In fact, the law says, “No woman upon whom an abortion is attempted, induced, or performed shall be liable for a violation of the Preborn Child Protection Act.” Despite this, the Free & Just activist group has decided to deceive Nebraska residents about the case as an attempt to spur women to fight against protections for preborn children.
“It’s an attack on reproductive freedom. It’s an attack on our rights. And that’s exactly what we want to speak to, what we want to highlight and why we felt like the billboards are necessary,” said Chrystian Woods, a spokesperson with Free & Just. “The only way that we can help is to just speak up about what’s happening and to let people know that these people, these bans are extreme.”
Sandy Danek, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, has been vocal about the misinformation spread by the billboards. “When you’re looking at that, not knowing this case, you think a woman who had an abortion went to jail because she simply sought an abortion,” Danek told The Guardian. “It’s confusing and it’s misinformation.”
Of Celeste Burgess, she added, “The young woman who had the abortion performed simply went to jail because she improperly handled the body, didn’t report the death, and lied to authorities. We do not support any measures seeking to criminalize or punish a woman.”
