(LifeSiteNews) – A 38-year-old Texas resident and federal employee was arrested and charged for killing his preborn child by feeding his girlfriend abortion-inducing drugs without her knowledge.

The Austin-American Statesman reported that Justin Anthony Banta was arrested June 6 and charged with capital murder and evidence tampering. In September 2024, he allegedly snuck abortion pills into his girlfriend’s drink at a coffee shop at about six weeks of pregnancy after she rebuffed his offer to buy “Plan C” for her, saying she wanted the baby.

The girlfriend, who remains anonymous, told police that she began experiencing severe fatigue and bleeding the next day, requiring an emergency room visit, and ultimately lost her baby on October 19.

Police confiscated Banta’s phone during the course of the investigation, accusing him of tampering with it remotely to delete evidence, allegedly using his skills as an IT staffer for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

“Sheriff Authier expressed his gratitude to the owners and staff of the coffee shop … for their full cooperation, along with the efforts of Parker County Sheriff’s Office investigators, the Texas Rangers, Benbrook Police, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Digital Forensic and Technical Services, the U.S. Secret Service, the Regional Organized Crime Information Center (ROCIC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for their support and resources throughout this extensive investigation,” the Parker County Sheriff’s Office said.

In Texas, capital murder is punishable at a minimum of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, though it is possible prosecutors could seek the death penalty.

Despite the abortion lobby’s framing of abortion as a matter of “choice,” it has long turned a blind eye to abortion coercion.

Live Action’s “Aiding Abusers” series draws on news reports, eyewitness testimony, and undercover video to expose Planned Parenthood employees’ willingness to offer abortions to girls as young as 12 without reporting signs of statutory or forcible rape to law enforcement. This enables the men who brought the girls in for appointments to bring them home and continue abusing them.

In 2023, the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute released a study that interviewed 1,000 American women and found that 61 percent of women who undergo abortions do so due to pressure from “male partners, family members, other persons, financial concerns, and other circumstances.”

“Forcing a woman to have an abortion, including a minor, is illegal in all 50 states of the United States of America,” according to the Justice Foundation’s Center Against Forced Abortions, which offers a variety of information resources to help those who are being pressured into killing their babies.

Allowing abortion pills to be distributed and taken without medical oversight makes them much easier to obtain for purposes such as Bunta’s, although whether anything will be done about it nationally remains to be seen.

President Donald Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions since returning to office but said on the campaign trail that he would not enforce federal law prohibiting abortion pills from being dispensed by mail. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has since promised a “complete review” of the medical risks of abortion pills.