Nebraska woman jailed for 90 days for burning fetus after abortion

A Nebraska woman was sentenced to 90 days in jail Wednesday for burning and burying her aborted fetus.

Celeste Burgess, 18, pled guilty to charges of concealing or abandoning a body earlier this year. Her mother, Jessica Burgess, 42, already pled guilty to providing her daughter with pills for an illegal abortion and the burning and burying of the fetus earlier this month.

Burgess avoided two more misdemeanor charges of false reporting and concealing the death of another person through an agreement with prosecutors. Her late third-trimester abortion violated Nebraska’s then-20-week ban on abortion.

Gov. Jim Pillen (R) signed a 12-week ban in Nebraska this May, slightly less than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion at the national level. 

“The Court specifically finds that while probation is appropriate, confinement is necessary because without this confinement, it would depreciate the seriousness of the crime or promote disrespect for the law,” the judge’s order in Burgess’ case read.

Mother and daughter’s Facebook messages, accessed by local police via a search warrant, were used to locate the fetus’s buried remains. The messages reportedly detailed the women’s plans for the abortion and evidence destruction.

The Associated Press contributed.