NY Man Accused of Slipping Pregnant Girlfriend Abortion Drug, Causing Stillborn Birth
A 34-year-old Brooklyn man gave his pregnant girlfriend abortion-inducing pills during intercourse, thus causing her to have a miscarriage, prosecutors recently argued in the Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Prosecutors allege that Shervaughn Remy of Crown Heights, N.Y., is guilty of felony abortion after reportedly slipping two Cytotec pills inside his pregnant girlfriend while the two had intercourse in 2013. The girlfriend claims in the criminal complaint that after having intercourse with Remy, she felt intense abdominal pains so severe that she admitted herself to the local hospital.
The criminal complaint goes on to say that the doctor treating Remy's then-girlfriend at the hospital discovered two Cytotec pills inside her. The woman then gave birth to a stillborn, 14-week old fetus hours later. Remy was arrested on Valentine's Day 2013.
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According to the New York Post, Remy turned down a deal for him to plead guilty to felony abortion on Monday, with his defense attorney telling the court: "My client maintains his innocence." The defense argues that the alleged victim in the case has indicated she does not want a restraining order for Remy, nor does she want to press charges.
Being found guilty of felony abortion has a maximum prison sentence of four years.
In a similar case, John Andrew Welden of Florida was sentenced earlier this year to 13 years, eight months in prison for tricking his girlfriend into taking the abortion-inducing drug Cytotec, telling her it was an antibiotic meant for treating an infection.
The victim, Remee Jo Lee, then suffered a miscarriage when she was seven weeks pregnant. Lee is now advocating for Florida legislature to pass a bill that would protect fetuses at any age in the womb from intentional harm. Florida's current law states that an offender can only be prosecuted in connection to a fetus' death if the fetus can survive outside the mother's womb.
If the bill Lee is advocating for passes, an offender could receive up to a life sentence in prison for intentionally harming a fetus, no matter its age.
"This has just been the most devastating experience for me. This never goes away. I deal with this every day," Lee told a Senate Judiciary Committee in late February. "This has just been very, very hard and I never want anyone else to go through this ever again and I want the state of Florida to show that this is not acceptable, that you can't get away with this."
Florida's "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" has cleared the House Judiciary Committee and now heads to the House floor for a vote. Its companion bill has also cleared two Senate panels and is now being addressed by the Rules committee.
