18-year-old Syeisha Johnson was charged with assault inflicting serious bodily injury on an unborn child, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and negligent child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury after allegedly taking the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol to end a pregnancy at 31 weeks in July. Her boyfriend was also arrested and charged with negligent child abuse.
Johnson found out she was pregnant at 20 weeks in June, and then ordered the abortion pills online to be shipped from Virginia. According to the police report: “On July 29, 2026 Ms. Johnson began having abdominal pain and sat down during the day to help with the pain. She sat on the toilet and gave birth to a child.”
Johnson turned 18 in June, meaning she was past the North Carolina requirement for minors to get parental permission for an abortion, however the state bans most abortions after 12 weeks.
Her story comes the same week a recording was released of a call between acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and faith leaders, where Blanche promised that the Trump administration would work to ban mail-order abortion pills nationwide.
Most women would not choose to abort at 31 weeks if healthcare was accessible.
You’re asking the wrong question.
Again, i agree. But the article isn’t about most woman, is it? It’s about one teen that aborted at 31 weeks.
So, again: Is it you position that a womens right to make decisions about her body is indipendend from the developmental stage a baby is in?
This article has no women in it. There’s a little girl. Children can’t consent.
This teenager would have chosen to abort earlier if she could.
Yes. There’s very, very few abortions that happen in the third trimester and those are heartbreaking situations usually involving a very much wanted baby. Laws shouldn’t tie doctors hands in those situations either.
You can’t separate out the inability to access appropriate healthcare from this case. They are entwined.
Yeah, i see an abortion for medical reasons or to save the live of the mother. And i agree that doctors should be able to act in such situations without fear of repercussions.
Yeah, she should, and it’s wrong that she wasn’t. So you are saying that, because the system didn’t allow her any other path to abortion, you feel such a late abortion was the right call?
Cause i would argue that, even if the circumstances were out of her hands and it’s unfair for her, at 31 weeks she was dealing with a fellow human being and should have gone trough with it. I don’t blame her that she didn’t and she shouldn’t be punished for it (it’s not her fault anyway).