Another man has been convicted of slipping the abortion pill to his pregnant girlfriend.
Capt. Brandon Jones-Adams, 34, was sentenced last week to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to domestic violence, fraternization, and conduct unbecoming of an officer during a trial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
He was also dismissed from the military and forfeited all pay and allowances for sneaking the abortion drug mifepristone into the drink of his girlfriend, a junior enlisted soldier, causing her to miscarry at the start of her second trimester.
“What Mr. Jones-Adams did was a disgusting act that killed an unborn child and violated the victim’s trust and autonomy in the most personal way,” said Michele Starostka, special agent in charge of the Army Criminal Investigative Division’s Western Field Office, on Friday in a statement.
“When someone crosses that line, we will throw every resource we have into the investigation and make sure they face full accountability,” Ms. Starostka said.
The case offered additional evidence on how easy it has become to access mifepristone since the Food and Drug Administration lifted the in-person dispensing requirement in 2023, allowing the drug to be prescribed online and delivered by mail.
The Army Criminal Investigation Division investigation found that Jones-Adams obtained mifepristone through an online provider by using a fake name.
Jones-Adams began a relationship with the junior officer after meeting her in November 2024. She became pregnant in May 2025 while they were assigned to South Korea. Both were redeployed shortly thereafter to the Washington state base.
“On the morning of August 21, 2025, the victim was at Jones-Adams’ home in Puyallup, Washington,” the Army said in a statement. “He poured her a drink and after she consumed it, she noticed a residue in her cup and immediately suspected that Jones-Adams administered a drug in her drink.”
After experiencing severe cramping, she went to the emergency room on base, where she told the hospital staff of her suspicions.
“While there she miscarried in her 13th week of pregnancy, killing her unborn child,” the Army statement said.
Mifepristone is approved under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Management Strategy for ending pregnancies through 10 weeks’ gestation.
Investigators who examined his cellphone history also found that Jones-Adams “made several attempts to acquire Mifepristone from other sources.”
The conviction comes with the Trump administration under pressure to review mifepristone’s safety and restore safeguards lifted by the Biden-era FDA in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
’Mail-order abortion’
Pro-life advocates have tracked examples of women losing their pregnancies after unwittingly or unwillingly ingesting mifepristone.
“Under the Joe Biden rule that inexplicably remains in place, easy access to dangerous abortion drugs online, without so much as an ID check, enables abusers to harm innocent women and children in places where we rightly expect the highest standard of conduct,” said SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser on Monday in a statement. “Week after week, the failure to uphold and fight for our founding promises produces shameful, tragic results.”
The group cited the case of Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman who joined a lawsuit against the FDA last year after she says her boyfriend ordered mifepristone online and compelled her to take it against her will, causing her to lose her pregnancy.
“If mail-order abortion wasn’t a thing, I’m 100% sure I would have my child,” said Ms. Markezich, a named plaintiff in Louisiana v. FDA.
A coalition of 83 national and state pro-life groups urged Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche in a letter last week to enter into a consent decree in the case that would restore the in-person dispensing requirement while the FDA conducts a review of the drug’s safety.
The Justice Department has argued that the FDA should be allowed to complete its review and reconsider restrictions, saying that the lawsuit threatens to “short circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone.”
