A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to a maximum of 18 months in prison for buying so-called abortion pills online and administering them to her teenage daughter to end her pregnancy, Reuters reported on Saturday.
Jennifer Ann Whalen, 39, of Washingtonville, a single mother who works as a nursing home aide, pleaded guilty in August to obtaining the pills that caused a miscarriage from an online site in Europe for her daughter, 16, who wanted to end her pregnancy.
Whalen was sentenced on Friday by Montour County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gary Norton to serve between 12 and 18 months in prison for breaking a state law that requires abortions be performed by physicians.
She was also fined $1,000 and ordered to perform 40 hours of community service after she is released from prison. The felony offense called for a maximum of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Matthew Bingham Banks, Whalen's lawyer, said in the past that criminal prosecutions of this kind were not common.
Whalen told police there wasn't a local abortion clinic available to perform an abortion and her daughter did not have health insurance to cover a hospital abortion, the Press Enterprise newspaper of Bloomsburg reported.
Her daughter began experiencing severe cramping and bleeding after taking the pills and Whalen took her to a hospital near her home for treatment.
The closest abortion clinic to Whalen's home is about 74 miles away in Harrisburg.
The Pennsylvania case comes after the prosecution of a Florida man who pleaded guilty to fooling his girlfriend into taking an abortion pill. He was sentenced in January to 13 years in prison and $28,500 restitution. Florida toughened state law to allow for prosecutions in the death of non-viable fetuses in June.
