A Nebraska woman is facing felony charges for helping her daughter have an abortion and devise a plan to burn the fetus afterward.
Nebraska prosecutors say that Jessica Burgess helped her daughter Celeste, 17, get an abortion pill, showed her how to use it, and helped her bury her aborted fetus.
Personal messages regarding the abortion were shared on Facebook and were handed over to police by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after a search warrant was issued to the company.
The daughter shared with her mom, “talks about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body,” a detective wrote in court documents. “I will finally be able to wear jeans,” she says in one of the messages.
The 17-year-old was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors, and her mother was charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors, including the charge of “concealing a body,” and providing false information to investigators.
Celeste was almost 23 weeks pregnant. In her “private” Facebook chats, her mother had instructed her about the use of the abortion medication and they discussed how to get rid of the fetus.
Nebraska law makes it illegal to have an abortion 20 weeks after fertilization.
Celeste, who is now 18, is being charged as an adult at prosecutors’ request.
Detective Ben McBride of the Norfolk Police Investigations Unit explained in an affidavit how he found out about the incident and admitted that clues and evidence that helps in investigations is often found on Facebook. He was able to easily obtain a search warrant and serve Meta for information on the mother and daughter’s accounts.
“I know from prior training and experience, and conversations with other seasoned criminal investigators, that people involved in criminal activity frequently have conversations regarding their criminal activities through various social networking sites, i.e. Facebook,” McBride said in an application for the search warrant.
Meta told reporters that they were unaware that the charges were related to an abortion.
Facebook says it fights back against requests it thinks are invalid, but that they did give investigators information in about 88% of the 59,996 times that the government requested data in the last six months of 2021.
The search warrant brings to the forefront the concerns people have about their privacy on social media, especially in the social climate after Roe v Wade was overturned.
It’s also a concern for social media companies who may not want to collect data that can trigger serve warrants.