Blog Post

TX Man Charged with Murder in Forced Abortion Case

Texas authorities arrested a man on a capital murder charge on suspicion that he poisoned his girlfriend with an abortion drug that caused the death of their unborn child.

According to the Criminal Investigations Division of the Parker County Sheriff’s Office, Justin Anthony Banta, 38, who worked in IT at the U.S. Department of Justice, was arrested on June 6 after a month-long investigation. The victim’s girlfriend alleges that Banta intentionally added the abortion drug known as Plan C to her drink in order to force her to have an abortion without her knowledge or consent.

The incident occurred in September of 2024 when the victim, who was in a romantic relationship with Banta, discovered she was pregnant. When she informed Banta of the pregnancy, he offered to cover the cost of an abortion and suggested they order Plan C on the abortion pill black market which would allow them to illegally import mail-order mifepristone into the Lone Star State.

However, Banta’s girlfriend wanted to keep the baby. When she was six weeks pregnant, she went for a sonogram where she learned that the baby had a strong heartbeat, displayed good vital signs and was pronounced healthy by her doctor.

That afternoon, she met with Banta at a coffee shop in Tarrant county where she believes he slipped Plan C into her coffee because the very next day, she began suffering such heavy bleeding she was forced to go to the emergency room.

“The victim reported she lost her baby on Oct. 19, which she believed was a result of the drugs Banta had previously placed in her drink at the coffee shop without her permission,” the Sheriff’s office reported in a press release. “Following an interview with Banta, his cell phone was collected as evidence. Sheriff’s investigators believe Banta, who works at the IT Department of the U.S. Department of Justice, later accessed the phone remotely and performed a ‘reset,’ thereby deleting crucial evidence related to the case.”

As a result, law enforcement obtained a felony arrest warrant for Banta on a charge of tampering with physical evidence and a charge from the Texas rangers for capital murder of the unborn child.

As Jordan Boyd writes for the Federalist, “States such as Texas and Louisiana have laws that bar or even punish people who knowingly induce chemical abortion in a woman without her consent.”

The drug itself, Mifepristone, not only kills the unborn child, but has also been found to be very dangerous even for the woman. As Boyd reports, this drug is known to cause life-threatening side effects such as hemorrhage.

“In fact, a recent study found that the rate of life-threatening complications, including a trip to the ER, in women who ingest the pill is 22 times higher than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claims,” Boyd reports.

Due to the deadly nature of Mifepristone for both mother and child, more states should have laws prohibiting crimes such as these from being perpetrated against women and the unborn, and severe penalties for those who violate them.

Banta was released after posting a $500,000 bond for the capital murder charge and a $20,000 bond for the tampering with evidence charge.

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