The Maryland Supreme Court this week granted a new trial to a woman who was convicted of killing her newborn baby, ruling her internet searches about abortion during the early months of her pregnancy were irrelevant and a judge should not have allowed the jury to hear that information.

Moira Akers, 43, of Columbia, was found guilty in 2022 in Howard County Circuit Court of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

On Nov. 1, 2018, Akers delivered a baby boy in her bathroom and then left the infant in a plastic bag in the closet.

Akers claimed that the child was stillborn and told investigators that she felt panicked, overwhelmed and scared. But prosecutors alleged that she asphyxiated the baby.

In a 5-2 decision on Wednesday, Justice Brynja M. Booth wrote for the majority that a woman’s right to end a pregnancy is “one of the most divisive issues in this country.” Even though abortion is common and protected in Maryland, it is still “highly stigmatized.”

The justices had to consider whether the internet searches were relevant to show an intent to kill or harm her newborn, she said, or unfairly prejudicial.

“We hold that the internet searches are irrelevant and that the trial court erred as a matter of law in admitting them,” Booth said.

The majority also held that Akers’ decision to skip prenatal care was not evidence of motive or intent to kill or harm the child.

Justice Shirley M. Watts wrote a concurring opinion. Meanwhile, Justice Steven B. Gould authored a dissenting opinion, which Justice Jonathan Biran joined.

“A strong desire not to have another child — one that lasts from the beginning of the pregnancy until the moment of birth — is a motive to kill a newborn,” Gould wrote.

How people reacted to the ruling

Akers’ attorneys, Gary Bair, Steve Mercer and Isabelle Raquin, could not be reached on Thursday for comment.

A spokesperson for the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office, Yolanda Vazquez, declined to comment.

Sara Ainsworth, chief legal and policy director for If/When/How, a national nonprofit network of attorneys and law students fighting for reproductive rights, said the decision is important for future cases in which people are facing similar charges.

A friend-of-the-court brief she filed argued there is never a time in any criminal or civil case when the fact that someone “considered an abortion, had an abortion, researched self-managed abortions, should be relevant to whether or not they committed a crime.”

Though she’s pleased with the decision, Ainsworth said there is still work to be done.

The ruling reaffirms Maryland law does not recognize fetal personhood — the idea that life begins at conception — which is gaining support in other parts of the country, said Margaret Johnson, a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Johnson, who’s also the director of the Bronfein Family Law Clinic and co-director of the Center on Applied Feminism, said if prosecutors had been successful in arguing that Akers’ internet searches, along with her decision to skip prenatal care, were relevant, that would lead to the criminalization of pregnant women.

“This clearly reasoned decision and win for Ms. Akers is a clear message to Marylanders and all Americans: A pregnant woman’s online searches and prenatal care decisions cannot be twisted into ‘evidence’ of intent to murder,” said Karen Thompson, legal director for Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in New York that also submitted a friend of the court brief.

Thompson said the group hopes prosecutors will “make the right decision and uphold Ms. Akers’ constitutionally protected rights, her liberty, and her personhood instead of transferring those things to fetuses.”

What happened in Moira Akers' case?

Akers initially did not tell first responders that she delivered a baby at home, according to the opinion. She reported that a while ago she experienced an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus.

When doctors questioned her in the emergency room, the opinion states, Akers admitted that she gave birth.

Later, Akers told a social worker that she had talked to her husband, Ian, about the possibility that she might be pregnant. They discussed ending the pregnancy, the opinion states, and she went to the doctor.

The doctor confirmed that she was 15 weeks pregnant. Akers reported that the physician told her that it was too late to terminate the pregnancy, according to the opinion.

Akers then told her husband that she experienced an ectopic pregnancy and it was over, the opinion states. She told a detective that she intended to give up the child at a safe haven location.

Before she delivered the baby, Akers claimed that she had not felt any movement for several days and concluded that the unborn child had “already passed,” according to the opinion.

Howard County Police extracted information from her cellphone.

Akers, the opinion states, conducted some of the following searches earlier in her pregnancy, when she would have been allowed to terminate it under the law:

• “rue tea for abortion”
• “miscarriage at 7 weeks”
• “how to treat ectopic pregnancy naturally”

In Maryland, Akers had a constitutionally and statutorily protected right to search for information about how to end her pregnancy, Booth said.

Prosecutors prominently featured the searches in their case, Booth noted.

But Booth said they “fail to meet the basic threshold for admissibility.” The searches, she said, did not tend to prove that Akers intended to kill or harm a baby several months later after delivery.

“The State’s argument begs the question of how Ms. Akers’ internet searches made it more likely that she had a homicidal intent toward a living newborn, unless one assumes that a person who researches abortion options is more likely to commit murder or harm a person,” Booth said.

Akers is incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.