KY woman charged with fetal homicide after taking abortion medication

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[USA TODAY NETWORK] — Kentucky State Police have arrested an Eastern Kentucky woman after taking medication ordered online to complete an abortion, according to a release from the Kentucky State Police.

Detectives responded to a clinic in Campton, Kentucky in Wolfe County after a woman allegedly disclosed to staff that she had aborted her pregnancy at home. Detectives interviewed the woman, 35-year-old Melinda Spencer, who said she took the medication and buried what police described as a “developed male infant,” in a shallow grave on her property, the release stated.

Detectives located the infant in the location that Spencer described, the release continued. An estimated gestational age for the infant was not provided.

Spencer was charged with fetal homicide in the first degree, abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. Fetal homicide, according to Kentucky law, occurs when a person causes the death of an unborn child at any stage of gestation through criminal conduct. Exceptions to the charge, however, are “acts of a pregnant woman that caused the death of her unborn child.”

Kentucky has had a near total ban on abortion since 2022. A doctor can only perform an abortion to prevent death or serious injury to the mother, though nothing in Kentucky law prevents a woman from seeking an abortion in other states.