(LifeSiteNews) — Texas prosecutors are moving forward with the first prosecution under the state’s law against “performance of abortion,” of a man accused of feeding a pregnant woman abortion drugs without her knowledge or consent.
Pregnancy Help News reports that Jon Rueben Demeter has been indicted for abortion plus “injury to a child.” According to authorities, sheriff’s deputies were called to a Montgomery County hospital in February 2026 to investigate a suspicious miscarriage. The woman said Demeter wanted her to abort and offered to pay for both the abortion and related travel, but she had refused, intending to keep the daughter she had named, Presley Mae.
Demeter was arrested two days later, after investigators concluded he surreptitiously gave the woman mifepristone he obtained from the internet.
“She had 10 fingers, 10 toes, and an entire lifetime of possibilities ahead of her. That future was stolen before it ever had a chance to begin,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Wesley Doolittle. “We will not rest, and we will pursue every lead, uncover every answer, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”
“The case reflects the seriousness with which prosecutors and investigators approach allegations involving bodily autonomy, personal safety, and the protection of victims,” added chief prosecutor Laura Hill.
“A person’s a person no matter how small,” declared Montgomery district attorney Michael Holley. “I’m grateful I live in a place where little lives matter. And I’m grateful I live in a place where our ladies’ lives matter and that violence against our ladies is unacceptable in any form.”
Inducing a baby’s death against the pregnant woman’s will was always illegal, but this is believed to be the first prosecution for “performance of an abortion” since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed direct abortion bans to take effect in 2022 by overturning Roe v. Wade.
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 back to their residences 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.” On Monday, LifeSiteNews’s Jonathon Van Maren highlighted several recent and ongoing cases, including Illinois resident Emerson Evan who was just sentenced to seven years for “voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child.”
“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.
