A New York man has been arrested for allegedly slipping a pregnant woman the abortion pill, causing the death of her baby.
According to the Rensselaer County Sheriff‘s office, Dia Beshara, 39, of Schaghticoke is facing a second-degree assault charge and has been released. His victim has filed a restraining order against him.
“On July 3, 2023, the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office arrested Dia A. Beshara, a 39-year-old resident of Schaghticoke,” said the Sheriff’s Office on Facebook. “Beshara was charged with Assault in the Second Degree at the conclusion of a 15-month investigation. The investigation began when the female victim reported that, while she was pregnant, Beshara gave her a drug, Mifepristone, without her knowledge, causing a miscarriage. Beshara was arraigned in Schaghticoke Town Court where he was released on his own recognizance with an order of protection in place.”
Mifepristone is the first of two drugs used in the abortion pill regimen. It acts to block the naturally-occurring pregnancy hormone progesterone, which works during the first weeks of pregnancy to sustain the developing preborn baby’s life. Progesterone also prevents muscle contractions in the uterus that would cause the woman’s body to reject the newly-created life.
The abortion pill previously had REMS [Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy] safety protocols in place which required women to be examined prior to being given the abortion pill and take mifepristone in person due to the complications associated with it, including the deadly risks if taken with an ectopic pregnancy. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, the FDA relaxed the safety rules and allowed for mail distribution of the abortion pill temporarily. By December 2021, the Biden FDA had further weakened the REMS by eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement and enabling the abortion pill to be permanently shipped by mail.
This opened the door for men, including Beshara, to give women the abortion pill without their knowledge. Studies show that 64% of women who have undergone abortions felt pressured to do so. That pressure can come from parents, boyfriends, employers, and friends.
In April of 2022, Jeffery Smith was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of a plea agreement after he was convicted of attempted first-degree intentional homicide of a preborn child who was 21 weeks old at the time.
Jin Mimae was arrested in February 2021 for tricking his pregnant girlfriend into taking mifepristone. Upon his arrest, he told police, “I didn’t want to marry her,” adding, “Because of the current economic conditions, I did not want to raise a child.” He had ordered mifepristone online the same day his girlfriend had a positive pregnancy test and told her they were to treat an STD.
The list of such heinous acts goes on and the popularity of mail-order abortion pills is only rising. The abortion pill has been found to be four times more dangerous for women than a first-trimester surgical abortion. Risks include hemorrhaging, incomplete abortion, infection, and the need for a second, surgical abortion.
Despite this, the Biden administration called the previous safety regulations on the abortion pill “just unacceptable.”
