Maryland Supreme Court Finds Abortion Contemplation Irrelevant Evidence to Prove Murder; Overturns Conviction for Stillbirth

Currently serving a 30-year prison sentence, Moira Akers has now been granted a new trial. 

NEW YORK – Adopting Pregnancy Justice’s legal reasoning and citing our report on the harms of granting rights to fetuses in its opinion, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled this week that a woman’s murder conviction and decades-long sentence for experiencing a stillbirth cannot stand and ordered that she receive a new trial.

In 2018, Moira Akers endured a traumatic labor and delivery at home that ended in a stillbirth. Her husband found her bleeding profusely and called 911 to take her to a hospital, setting off a chain of events that ultimately led to her arrest and prosecution.

The state relied on Ms. Akers’ prior internet search history of abortion, her decision to forgo prenatal care, her decision to keep her pregnancy private, and the lung float test – a deeply inaccurate forensic test used to “determine” whether a baby was born alive – to prove that Ms. Akers had an intent to commit murder.

Based on these arguments, Ms. Akers was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for second-degree murder and to a concurrent 20-year sentence for child abuse resulting in a death. The state appellate court later affirmed the lower court’s decision.

This past August, Pregnancy Justice submitted a “friend of the court” brief to the Maryland Supreme Court, alongside briefs submitted by the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Association, the ACLU of Maryland, the ACLU Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative, and If/When/How. Pregnancy Justice argued that the “State’s use of a pregnant woman’s decisions made during pregnancy to prosecute her for the murder of her newborn child is a violation of Maryland law banning the assignment of rights to fetuses” and was irrelevant evidence in establishing murderous intent. The court agreed, stating “Maryland law recognizes the fundamental difference between a fetus and a baby and rejects the concept of fetal personhood.”

“This clearly reasoned decision is a win for Mrs. Akers, a strike against the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, and a loud message to prosecutors: a woman’s online searches and health care decisions cannot be twisted into evidence of criminal intent,” said Pregnancy Justice Legal Director Karen Thompson. “The state painted Ms. Akers – who remains incarcerated – as a homicidal perpetrator for surviving a pregnancy loss. We hope the state will now make the right decision and uphold Ms. Akers’ constitutionally and statutorily protected rights, her liberty, and her personhood instead of transferring those things to a fetus.”

Ms. Akers is represented by Judge Gary E. Bair (Ret.) and Isabelle Raquin of Raquin Mercer LLC.

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Pregnancy Justice advances and defends the rights of pregnant people, no matter if they give birth, experience a pregnancy loss, or have an abortion. No one should lose their rights because of pregnancy.