After Missouri voters added abortion protections to the state constitution in 2024, Kelly McCoomb decided to keep her yard sign supporting the measure in the basement of her suburban St. Louis home. Abortion access is important to McCoomb. She wants her daughter to grow up in a state where the option is available if needed, and the sign was a keepsake from the day Missourians voted to reverse…
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Moira Akers was prosecuted and convicted of the murder of a newborn in 2022. She claims to have given birth to a stillborn baby in her home in Columbia, Maryland, in 2018.
Prosecutors doubted Akers’ story, using her online searches for abortion services and lack of prenatal care as evidence of ill intent. But it was a “forensic method” devised in the 17th century that proved key to Akers’ conviction.
The method, known as a “float test,” was designed to determine if a baby was stillborn or born alive by placing the lungs of a deceased fetus in water. If the lungs float, then they are aerated, meaning the baby was breathing and alive prior to their death.
In 2018, former Maryland chief medical examiner Dr. David Fowler signed the autopsy report that, using the float test as proof, determined that Akers’ baby died after Akers asphyxiated it. Fowler also testified in Akers’ trial. Prosecutors used Fowler’s testimony and autopsy report as evidence to convict Akers of second-degree murder in 2022.
Similar to Fowler’s infamous 2021 testimony in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, in which he argued that George Floyd died due to drug intoxication and inhaling fumes from a car tailpipe, Fowler’s citation of the float test in Akers’ case has elicited criticism from the medical community.
Fowler was also the subject of a scathing audit released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office last year, which found that at least 36 cases involving deaths that occurred during police restraint were improperly ruled accidents or left unclassified during his tenure
The float test has been widely discredited as imprecise and lacking methodological
The family of a woman who died after she could not get an abortion in Texas is suing doctors and state officials including Attorney General Ken Paxton. It is the first lawsuit over a death linked to an abortion ban. “Tierra Walker is dead and those responsible must be held accountable,” the suit reads. “At every turn, Texas’s political and medical establishments not only failed but actively…
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Abortion opponents have long claimed that abortion bans aren’t meant to target pregnant people, but rather the providers who perform the abortions. Time and again, that has proven to be a lie. This time, the target is a teenager. Just this month, an 18-year-old young woman in Durham, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with a litany of crimes for allegedly self-managing an abortion at 31…
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Reproductive rights activists are alarmed over a pledge by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to institute nationwide abortion restrictions. Blanche, whose confirmation for attorney general is currently before the Senate, made the remarks in a private call with anti-abortion activists that was later posted online. According to the audio recording, Blanche said the Trump administration is…
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On Tuesday, voters in Kansas and Missouri overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures proposed by Republican lawmakers that aimed to restrict their democratic and human rights. In Kansas, proposed Amendment 1 would have required direct elections for state Supreme Court justices. The measure was introduced by Republicans in the state legislature to counter the process for appointing jurists to the…
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