A possible reaction to negative public opinion.
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After charging a woman with murder over a self-induced abortion, forcing her to spend three days in jail and drawing national attention, Starr County officials announced Sunday they would change course and move to dismiss the case.
“In reviewing applicable Texas law, it is clear that Ms. Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her,” Gocha Allen Ramirez, the district attorney in Starr County, said in a news release.
Few details on the case have been made public, including how the abortion was performed and how far along the pregnancy had been. Ramirez’s news release said a hospital reported the January abortion to the Starr County Sheriff’s Department, prompting the criminal investigation and murder indictment.
Demonstrators protested outside Starr County Jail on Saturday against the arrest of Lizelle Herrera. Credit: Michael Gonzalez For The Texas Tribune
It’s also unclear under which statute Herrera was charged. Texas law exempts a pregnant person from being charged with murder or any lesser homicide charge for an abortion. The pregnant person is also typically excluded from lesser criminal charges if abortion laws are broken, as state laws instead target the provider.
“For pregnant people, the rule in the state of Texas has essentially always been, since the beginning of criminalization of abortion, that the pregnant person can not be prosecuted,” said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starr_County,_Texas
