A Nebraska woman is facing felony charges for helping her teenage daughter have an abortion, burn the fetus and then bury it, reports the Lincoln Journal Star.
According to prosecutors, Jessica Burgess, 41, helped her daughter, 17, obtain abortion pills in April and gave her instructions on how to take them to end the pregnancy.
The teen was about 24 weeks pregnant at the time.
The prosecutor handling the case said it's the first time he has charged anyone for illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks, a restriction that was passed in 2010. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, states weren’t allowed to enforce abortion bans until the point at which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks.
Burgess is facing five criminal charges, including three felonies. Her daughter, who recently turned 18 and is being tried as an adult, is facing three charges, including one felony.
Burgess and her daughter initially told police that the teen had delivered a stillborn baby and that they helped bury the fetus with the help of a 22-year-old man.
The man told detectives the women tried to burn the fetus before they buried it.
Abortions in Nebraska are banned after 22 weeks.
In early June, the mother and daughter were only charged with a single felony for removing, concealing or abandoning a body, and two misdemeanors: concealing the death of another person and false reporting.
It wasn't until about a month later, after investigators reviewed private Facebook messages, that they added the felony abortion-related charges against the mother.
In one of the Facebook messages, Jessica Burgess, tells her daughter that she has obtained abortion pills for her.
The daughter, meanwhile, "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. Law enforcement authorities obtained the messages with a search warrant, and detailed some of them in court documents.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.