Gerardo Flores

Who is Gerardo Flores?

Gerardo Flores of Lufkin, Texas, was convicted in 2005 of two counts of capital murder for giving his girlfriend, who was carrying twins, an at-home abortion the previous year. Prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty, and so he was sentenced automatically to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 40 years. The conviction and sentence were denounced as the most draconian punishment for abortion in America in decades.

His girlfriend, Erica Basoria, was sixteen years old and five months pregnant at the time. She was unable to get an abortion, so after her own attempts to induce miscarriage failed she called upon Flores to try stepping on her midsection. A week later she miscarried. Under Texas law a woman cannot be charged with causing the deaths of her own fetuses, so Flores alone stood trial.