On Friday 6 December 2024, Stuart Worby, aged 40, was convicted of administering a poison or using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage, and of sexual assault. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Nueza Cepeda, a friend of Worby’s, obtained the pills by lying about being pregnant in a telemedicine consultation. She was sentenced to 22 months in prison, which has been suspended.
Both Worby and Cepeda were convicted under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Persons Act. It is these sections that proponents of decriminalisation of abortion are looking to remove from the criminal law.
The Crime
Worby conspired with friend Wayne Finney to obtain the drugs. Finney’s partner, Nueza Cepeda, who was not pregnant herself, received the abortion pills following a telemedicine consultation.
Worby then administered the drugs to his pregnant girlfriend – the first, mifepristone, he put in her orange juice; the second, misoprostol, he administered by means of a surreptitious assault. She began to miscarry. She contacted the police after reading messages between Worby and Finney on Worby’s phone. One read: “It’s working, she’s bleeding.” Worby refused to take her to the hospital for four hours.
The one possibility she had to be a mother
The Court heard that Worby’s victim has since met another partner and has been unable to conceive. She told the Court, “The only baby that I could have had was the one I lost.”
The judge who sentenced Worby, Judge Joel Brennathan, said, “You must have known this was dangerous for the victim. She spoke of the betrayal and pain and the strong possibility that you have stolen the one possibility she had to be a mother. You are a selfish man.”
A consequence of pills-by-post
An SPUC spokesperson has said, “This is a heinous crime that has left a mother mourning the loss of her baby at 15-weeks. It is right that Worby and Cepeda face justice for the violence they have committed against this woman and her baby.
“The pills-by-post policy has allowed for crimes like this to take place. It is only because of pills-by-post that Cepeda was able to get the abortion drugs in the first place, despite not being pregnant herself. This policy must be ended immediately to prevent more tragedies like the one the victim has suffered.
“This case also highlights how important it is to keep abortion within the criminal law. Were it not for sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Persons Act, the perpetrators would not have received such a sentence. This law protects mothers and their unborn babies. Campaigners for decriminalisation want to remove all barriers to abortion access, even if that means criminals like these might evade justice.”
