Abortion pill infanticide

A 26-year-old Newark, N.J., man faces a hefty fine and a possible four-year prison sentence for not seeking medical attention for his infant who survived a late-term, chemically induced abortion last year. Braden Mull and his girlfriend, Kalina Gillum, ordered abortion pills online from a company in India. Gillum allegedly took the pills on Sept. 18 at 29 weeks of gestation and gave birth to a live baby boy the next day in their Ohio apartment.

In the texts between Mull and Gillum during the ordeal, neither suggested getting emergency medical aid for the baby. When he returned home from work, Mull cleaned the bathroom and discarded the baby in a trash bag. Gillum later experienced complications, and Mull rushed her to the hospital, where doctors saw an umbilical cord but no baby. Law enforcement searched the apartment and found the child. Mull pleaded guilty to multiple charges on Tuesday, including child endangerment and abuse of a corpse. Gillum’s trial will take place on Nov. 3.

The incident has drawn attention to the dangers of abortion-inducing drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines limit medication abortions to the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Women must obtain the pills under medical supervision, though states with legal telemedicine abortions allow mothers to take the pill after a remote consultation with a physician during the pandemic.

But anyone can access the life-ending drugs online. Websites such as Aid Access, started by Dutch abortionist Rebecca Gomperts, illegally sell the pills to women in the United States. Aid Access fulfills orders through a pharmacy in India.

In March 2019, the FDA ordered Aid Access to stop mailing the drugs to U.S. women, but the site continues to operate. Unregulated distribution of the pills leads to unsupervised and dangerous abortions for women like Gillum who take the pill too far along in their pregnancies.

Most states allow surgical abortions until 22 weeks of gestation or the age when a baby can survive outside the womb, which is usually between 24 and 28 weeks. In states that have no gestational limit such as Colorado, New Jersey, and Vermont, Mull and Gillum could have aborted their baby, without facing any legal repercussions. Likewise, if they had obtained the pills from a U.S. abortion provider a few months earlier, they could have legally ended the life of their child.

Gabriel Vance, director of external affairs for the Ohio pro-life group Created Equal, commented on this irony when the couple received charges in February. “Why do we see the choice of these parents to intentionally kill their child as any different from parents taking the abortion pill regimen prescribed by an abortion facility or telemedicine and the mother delivering her dead child in a toilet during a legal abortion?” To Vance, cases like this one should force people to consider the immorality of “intentionally kill[ing] pre-born humans despite the legality of the method used.”