A Louisiana man was arrested Friday on felony charges after allegedly giving a pregnant woman the abortion pill mifepristone without her knowledge, forcing her to undergo an emergency delivery that has left the infant hospitalized.
Jamelle Kelly, 39, is accused of first-degree feticide and domestic abuse of a pregnant woman, according to the Carencro Police Department in Louisiana.
The risk of abortion coercion has been a chief argument of anti-abortion activists in trying to get the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate safety protocols that require women to have an in-person doctor visit before receiving a prescription for mifepristone.
Mifepristone is involved in nearly two-thirds of the roughly 1.1 million abortions in the United States each year.
WAFB of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reported that the Carencro Police Chief David Anderson said the investigation began late last month when detectives learned the victim was given the medication without her consent.
The victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, was admitted to the hospital, where she required an emergency C-section at 23 weeks of gestation. The infant survived the surgery, weighing roughly one pound, according to authorities.
Anderson told local media that, as of Friday, the infant remains hospitalized and will have to stay for an extended period of time.
There have been two other documented cases of alleged coerced abortion in Louisiana since the FDA removed in-person screening requirements to obtain the pills in 2023.
In January 2025, a Louisiana grand jury criminally indicted New York physician Margaret Carpenter on a charge of prescribing abortion pills to a woman who prosecutors say coerced her teenage daughter into a medication abortion.
Prosecutors say the pregnant minor’s mother obtained mifepristone and misoprostol online from Carpenter, who shipped the drugs to Louisiana.
The case of Rosalie Markezich, who said she was pressured by her boyfriend to take abortion pills after he used her information to obtain them online, is being litigated federally by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is seeking to require the FDA to reinstate the in-person screening requirements for the drugs.
After much back-and-forth at the lower court level, the Supreme Court decided last month that the FDA’s allowance of telehealth abortion pill prescriptions can stand while the Louisiana case progresses through the courts.
That decision was predicated on the fact that the FDA is conducting a safety review of data on complications from consensual mifepristone abortions, which Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised since the beginning of his tenure last year.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) shared the new case involving Kelly on X, saying, “Men should not be able to obtain this drug and coerce women into abortions.”
“FDA should immediately reinstate the in-person visit requirement for mifepristone,” he said. “Women and babies should not remain at risk while the FDA finishes its safety study.”
Cassidy, a physician by training, has led the charge in the Senate in pressuring the FDA to hasten its safety review of mifepristone as well as reinstitute in-person screening requirements for the drug.
The Senate health committee, which Cassidy chairs, had a hearing in January regarding cases of coerced abortion that have arisen since abortion pills first became available online.
GOP ATTORNEYS GENERAL DEMAND ABORTION PILL WATER SAFETY TESTS FROM EPA
In addition to the two cases in Louisiana, Sens. Jon Husted (R-OH) and Ashley Moody (R-FL) outlined cases in their respective states of abusive male partners allegedly drugging their pregnant significant others to induce abortion.
A 2025 Australian study found that nearly 3% of women from a countrywide sample have been “pressured, threatened, or forced” to have an abortion.