In a case that has drawn significant attention from advocates amidst a nationwide debate over abortion access, 18-year-old Celeste Burgess of Norfolk, Nebraska, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years of probation for burning and burying a fetus she aborted with her mother’s assistance.
The sentencing took place in Madison County after Celeste Burgess pleaded guilty earlier this year to concealing or abandoning a dead body.
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As part of the plea agreement, two other misdemeanor charges of false reporting and concealing the death of another person were dropped.
While probation was deemed appropriate for the teenager, the judge’s order stated that confinement was necessary to uphold the seriousness of the crime and respect for the law.
The abortion, conducted during the third trimester, violated Nebraska law at the time, which banned abortion after 20 weeks of gestation.
Jessica Burgess, Celeste’s 42-year-old mother, allegedly ordered abortion pills online and provided them to her then-17-year-old daughter in the spring of 2022.
Jessica Burgess herself pleaded guilty earlier in the month to providing an illegal abortion, false reporting, and tampering with human skeletal remains.
In exchange for her plea, charges of concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician were dismissed. She is scheduled for sentencing on September 22.
The investigation into the abortion was initiated by a Norfolk police detective following a tip.
The police obtained a search warrant to access Facebook messages between the mother and daughter, where discussions about terminating the pregnancy and destroying the evidence were allegedly found.
Subsequently, the burned fetal remains were discovered buried in a field north of Norfolk.
The case has been closely monitored in the context of the national debate over abortion access, particularly following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, which had established the constitutional right to abortion for five decades.
Some Nebraska lawmakers, who opposed efforts to restrict abortion access in the state, cited the Norfolk case as an example of how state prosecutors could target women seeking abortions with criminal penalties.
Efforts to enact a six-week abortion ban in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature were unsuccessful, but a 12-week ban was later passed after being added as an amendment to another bill that sought to limit gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
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Critics argue that this move violated a Nebraska constitutional requirement that legislative bills stick to a single subject.
As the legal battle continues with the ACLU suing to overturn the abortion ban and transgender care bill, the case of Celeste Burgess and her mother continues to highlight the ongoing complexities and controversies surrounding abortion access in the United States.
