A pregnant woman charged with murder and incarcerated in Florida is seeking release on the grounds that her unborn baby is innocent and “held unlawfully,” her lawyer said on Thursday. “The child didn’t have a seat at the table when the decision to incarcerate the mother was made,” attorney William Norris told AFP.
The defendant, 24‑year‑old Natalia Harrell, has been in jail for about seven months. She faces a murder charge after fatally shooting another woman while riding in an Uber in Miami last July. At the time of her arrest, Harrell was approximately six weeks pregnant. According to a petition filed last week, she had a gun in her purse and “feared for her life and that of her unborn child.” The petition argues that the fetus “has not committed any crime” yet remains incarcerated in “deplorable conditions” and, without relief, is “likely to be brought into this world on the concrete floor of the prison cell.”
The petition also claims that Harrell has not received proper medical care during her confinement. Norris, who was hired by the father‑to‑be, filed the petition on behalf of the fetus, asserting that the “unborn child is a person.” He emphasized that the filing is “not a direct result” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but rather “a consequence of that” ruling.
A similar case drew international attention last June when a pregnant woman in Texas, ticketed for driving in a high‑occupancy carpool lane, argued that her unborn child should count as a second passenger. Norris said society is beginning to recognize an unborn child as a person, noting, “It’s interesting how society moves forward.”
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