The case of a 31-year-old Georgia woman who attempted to end a pregnancy with a common at-home medication illustrates why such women should be charged with murder, according to Al Mohler.
Speaking on his podcast “The Briefing” March 23, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., addressed the case of Alexia Moore, who delivered a 22- to 24-week-old fetus — that died within an hour — in December after taking misoprostol pills.
Misoprostol is a medication prescribed for medication abortion (often with mifepristone) to abort pregnancies of up to 11 weeks, with an 85% to 95% success rate. It is not clear whether Moore received the pills from a health care provider or why she was using this medication beyond the intended length of pregnancy.
Alexia Moore booking photo
The woman was charged with felony murder under a new Georgia law — enacted after the fall of Roe v. Wade — the first such person to be so charged.
Georgia’s “LIFE Act” bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks of pregnancy. It is one of several “fetal heartbeat” laws adopted in state legislatures. The Georgia law has faced continued legal challenges.
The law defines a fetus at any stage of development when a heartbeat is detected as a “person,” granting them legal rights.
Because of this, Mohler insisted the Georgia woman was rightly charged with murder because “she broke the law.”
“If you believe, you say you believe that killing the unborn is a form of murder, and it is, and many of you say you know it is, and then you say there is no circumstance whatsoever in which any woman could ever be charged with that crime, well, this case of Georgia really does help to prove the point,” Mohler said. “This is a woman who intentionally, willfully took the abortion pills in order to end a pregnancy long after it was legal in the state of Georgia.”
Al Mohler
Mohler said he wants Christians “to think of some moral consistency here” and added, “that moral consistency of course is merged with compassion.” Last month on his podcast, Mohler said he doesn’t believe empathy is a real thing.
National polling that shows most Americans do not support criminal charges against women who have abortions “reveals a basic moral incoherence,” Mohler said. “We need to call it out, a moral incoherence. The incoherence is this: It makes no sense whatsoever for Americans to say, ‘I believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe life begins at the moment of fertilization. I believe the unborn child should be protected,’ but when it comes to a woman, even at this stage of pregnancy, bringing about an abortion, the vast majority of the same people, at least according to the polls, say the woman should not be charged with a crime.”
The assertion that life begins at conception is a belief held mainly by the Catholic Church and some conservative evangelicals. It is not the common belief in the medical community.
According to Pew Research, 35% of Americans agree with the statement, “Human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights” while 45% disagree.
Mohler argued for “proportional responsibility” for women who have abortions.
“There are different degrees of murder. There are different circumstances. There are different charges. There are different kinds of understood and explicit responsibility. … The point is, the law can handle all these different understandings of relative responsibility when it comes to the murder of a person outside the womb. It ought to be able to do the same when it comes to the murder of the unborn.”
In the Georgia case, Moore was taken to a hospital emergency room with severe pain after she took the pills. She later was arrested and charged with felony murder and is being held in jail in Camden County, Ga., according to the Washington Post. She also was charged with possession of a Schedule II controlled substance and possession of dangerous drugs.