(LifeSiteNews) — Kentucky woman Melinda Spencer has been arrested and charged with chemically aborting her preborn baby boy at her home and then burying his remains in her backyard.

The Kentucky Lantern reports that on the afternoon of December 31, Kentucky State Police responded to a call from United Clinic about Spencer, who had come in and “disclosed that she had aborted her pregnancy at her residence.” According to the police, she admitted “she had ordered medication online to complete an abortion” and “took the medication which resulted in the death of a developed male infant.” Police later found the child, whose gestational age was not revealed, “in a shallow grave” on her property.

Spencer is charged with first degree fetal homicide, a capital offense defined as causing “death of an unborn child” except when “under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse,” as well as abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.

Spectrum News 1 adds that Angela Cooper of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU’s) Kentucky chapter condemned the news, criticizing that the woman would face punishment for killing her unborn child.

Kentucky Right to Life executive director Addia Wuchner noted, “One of the most important issues-and many of the lawmakers and legislators have said this to me as we worked on that–is addressing these illegal pills coming into Kentucky without any medical care, without any medical device.”

“Seeing this tragic case again reminds us that a child has lost their life and abortion only camouflages it,” she said. 

The story highlights the continuing problem of abortion pills, mailed across state lines and taken in complete privacy, undermining state pro-life protections.

In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built that year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Abortion pills account for most abortions in the U.S.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s most recent annual report revealed that, almost two years (as of April 2024) after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed direct abortion bans to be enforced for the first time in half a century, the nation’s largest abortion chain still operated almost 600 facilities nationwide, through which it committed 392,715 in the most recent reporting period. According to the Lozier Institute’s Prof. Michael New, that is a “record number of abortions for the organization and represents approximately 40 percent of the abortions performed in the United States.”

Questions are currently swirling over when and how the Trump administration will handle the problem. Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions primarily in the area of taxpayer funding, but concern has brewed among pro-lifers ever since he declared (amid a broader effort to “moderate” the Republican Party’s pro-life plank) that he would not enforce a federal law banning abortion pills from being dispensed by mail, continuing a Biden administration policy that undermines state pro-life laws.

Pro-lifers were given hope in May that the White House’s position might change when U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (another formerly pro-abortion figure who “moderated” during his own presidential bid) promised in May a “complete review” of the medical risks of abortion pills, though no conclusions or timetable have since been announced. But some pro-life leaders have recently called for the firing of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary over reports he is intentionally “slow walking” the review, which Makary denies.