Kenlissa Jones, 23, released from jail after she was charged on Saturday with murder for allegedly taking a pill that terminated her pregnancy

A murder charge against a 23-year-old Georgia woman who allegedly took pills that terminated her pregnancy has been dismissed, the county district attorney’s office said on Wednesday.



Kenlissia Jones, 23, of Albany, Georgia, has been released from jail, according to the Dougherty County district attorney’s office. She still faces a charge of possession of a dangerous drug.

“Jones had been charged by the Albany Police Department for the offense of malice murder,” the Dougherty County district attorney, Greg Edwards, said in a statement. “However, this morning, I dismissed that malice murder warrant after thorough legal research by myself and my staff led to the conclusion that Georgia law presently does not permit prosecution of Ms Jones for any alleged acts relating to the end of her pregnancy.”

Reproductive rights advocates said there was no abortion clinic nearby and that they were disturbed by reports that county prosecutors would consider charging the young woman with murder in the wake of so-called “feticide” – killing a fetus – laws sweeping the US.



“It is shocking each and every time we see an attempt to deny pregnant women their human rights and to treat them and the fact that they are pregnant as a crime rather than a public health issue,” said Lynn Paltrow, an attorney and the executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

Jones was arrested on Saturday night after giving birth to the fetus in a car on the way to the hospital, according to a police report viewed by the Guardian. The report said a county social services worker called Albany police to the hospital, and told officers that Jones had ingested four pills she purchased online to “induce labor”. The social services worker told police officers Jones wished to end her pregnancy because she and her boyfriend had broken up.

Jones’s 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 20 minutes after she gave birth, according to the report. It did not indicate how far along Jones was in her pregnancy.

Edwards said that after careful review of Georgia law, he and his staff concluded that state law does not permit the criminal prosecution of a pregnant woman for actions she took against her fetus.

“The Georgia Legislature has not carved out an exception to the pregnant woman’s common law immunity from such prosecutions,” Edwards said in the statement. “Applicable criminal law and statutes provide explicit immunity from prosecution for a pregnant woman for any unlawful termination of her pregnancy.”



Paltrow, an attorney and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, agreed with the district attorney’s interpretation of the state’s law, noting an 1998 Georgia appeals court decision that found a woman who delivered a stillborn fetus after shooting herself in the stomach could not be prosecuted for an illegal abortion.



While she welcomed the district attorney’s decision to dismiss the murder charge, she said it was still concerning that prosecutors are charging her with anything at all.

“The laws were not intended for that purpose,” Paltrow said. “But if we as a country choose to view pregnant women as criminals, then creative prosecutors have a myriad of laws to pick to treat pregnant women as criminals and to lock them up.”



In past cases, Paltrow said prosecutors have charge women with improper disposal of human remains, abuse of corpse and failing to report a birth.



Edwards told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday that an autopsy of the fetus was ordered to determine if it had been born before it died. He emphasized that the investigation was ongoing and any new findings would be taken into account.

He said, however, that at this point in the case he was “satisfied” that Jones was not subject to prosecution for malice murder. She would still be charged for being in possession of a drug, Cytotec, that had not been prescribed to her, he said.

Going forward, the district attorney’s office and police department will work more closely together to determine the most appropriate charge in such circumstances, Edwards said.

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 Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta.

Cytotec, the misoprostol drug a social services worker said Jones injested, can be used in combination with another drug – mifepristone – to end a pregnancy. The non-surgical method known is known as a medical abortion.

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.