US college student disposes of baby in abortion ban state

A student at the University of Kentucky has been charged after her baby was found dead in her closet.

Laken Snelling, 21, was arrested on August 31, local news publication Lex 18 reports.

The cheerleader allegedly concealed the birth, “cleaning any evidence, placing all cleaning items used inside of a black trash bag, including the infant, who was wrapped in a towel”.

Lexington Police Department confirmed Snelling was the mother of the baby.

She is now being held at Fayette County Detention Center on charges related to her concealment of the birth and treatment of the baby’s body.

Snelling was a college athlete, competing on her university’s cheerleading stunt team.

The extent of her knowledge of the pregnancy is not yet clear.

Kentucky has had a state-wide abortion ban in place since 2022, prohibiting pregnancy termination except where there is a risk of death or impairment to the pregnant person.

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health this year released two studies that considered the effect of abortion bans in the US.

The studies found abortion ban states had a higher number of births than expected - and this impact was two times higher in southern states such as Kentucky.

Suzanne Bell, PhD, MPH, assistant professor at Bloomberg’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, said the findings suggest pregnant people “were forced to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term”.

A pregnant woman filed a lawsuit last year in an attempt to fight Kentucky’s ban on abortion, according to the Guardian.

She argued the ban forces pregnant people “to carry their pregnancies to term and give birth, which carries a risk of death up to 14 times higher than that associated with abortion”.

It is one of several suits that have attempted to challenge the state’s strict laws.