The 21-year-old woman who was charged for discarding her 20-week-old feotus in garbage early last year is now free of the concealment of birth charge brought against her.
The police alleged that some time in March, the young woman threw a brown paper bag — with her baby inside — among garbage near the Hoppers Playing Field in Green Bay.
Garbage collectors reportedly found the foetus on March 13 and alerted the authorities. The foetus was pronounced dead shortly after, but upon investigation it was revealed that the baby was a stillbirth.
When the Green Bay resident appeared in the St. John’s Magistrates’ Court before Chief Magistrate Joanne Walsh this morning, a prosecutor from the Director of Public Prosecutions office explained that they were withdrawing the charge because they are “unable to satisfy the first requirement” needed for such a charge.
The two elements that must be present are the birth of a child and the secret disposition of said child, the prosecutor explained.
But since the age of viability in Antigua and Barbuda is 24 weeks and the feotus spent only 20 weeks in utero, the first element could not be satisfied.
More details will be provided in tomorrow’s Daily Observer.