A British man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for spiking a pregnant woman’s drink with abortion drugs to induce a miscarriage.
Stuart Worby, a 40-year-old resident of Dereham, Norfolk, was sentenced last Friday for causing harm to a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant at the time.
The woman, who is entitled to lifelong anonymity due to being the victim of a sexual crime, said in a victim impact statement that she felt she had “failed to protect my baby.”
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“This pain will never leave me knowing that this baby could have been my only chance to be a mother in this lifetime,” she said, according to The Guardian.
The woman also said that, since the induced miscarriage in 2022, she has been unable to conceive again despite going “from fertility clinic to fertility clinic,” adding that becoming “a mother was a dream to me.”
A second suspect in the case, Neuza Cepeda, a 39-year-old resident of Dereham, was sentenced to 22 months in prison suspended for two years for her involvement in the crime, The Guardian reported. The court concluding that she was involved solely “due to the pressure or badgering of Stuart Worby.”
According to a press release from the Norfolk Constabulary, Worby had bought doses of Mifepristone and Misoprostol for £470 ($598) in July 2022, acquiring them with the aid of Cepeda.
In August 2022, Worby urged the pregnant woman to consume a drink laced with the abortion-inducing drugs, causing her to suffer a miscarriage.
“The victim, who had wanted to keep her baby, was unknowingly administered the pills and immediately had to go to the bathroom to be sick and had [diarrhea] and began bleeding,” explained authorities.
“She then attended the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and after enduring a number of hours of pain and blood loss, she suffered a miscarriage and had to have surgery.”
The woman later found messages on Worby’s phone sent to a friend of his that indicated he had caused her miscarriage. Worby was then arrested on Aug. 5, 2022.
Worby later admitted to purchasing the drugs but denied giving them to her. He was found guilty on Oct. 30 of one count of sexual assault and administering a poison to cause a miscarriage.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a U.K.-based pro-life group, believes the case proves that the government should review their regulations on the abortion pill regimen.
“Even before Worby was found guilty, the woman who was complicit in his plan had already admitted to obtaining the abortion drugs for use on somebody else,” said SPUC Public Policy Manager Alithea Williams in a statement last month.
“It’s not clear whether Ms. Cepeda in this case acquired the drugs over the phone or in person, but there is clearly something very wrong when abortion pills can be obtained to use on somebody else without their consent.”
