Man charged with capital murder for killing preborn baby by drugging girlfriend

A Texas man who works for the U.S. Department of Justice has been charged with capital murder for allegedly slipping his pregnant girlfriend abortion drugs, causing the death of their six-week-old preborn child.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Justin Banta secretly put an abortion drug he obtained from an online mail-order abortion pill business into his girlfriend’s drink.

• She had recently learned she was pregnant, and she wanted to keep the baby. Banta did not.

• An ultrasound revealed a healthy baby at six weeks; two days later, she lost the baby and told police she believed Banta had drugged her to kill their baby.

• Police discovered that Banta remotely wiped his phone to hide evidence that he had purchased the abortion pills.

• Making the abortion pill easily available for anyone to obtain online (or even over the counter, as abortion advocates want) could prove dangerous to women and their preborn children.

THE DETAILS:

According to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office, Justin Anthony Banta, 38, was arrested on Friday and charged with capital murder and tampering with evidence. He was released that same day after posting a $500,000 bond for the capital murder charge and a $20,000 bond for the charge of tampering with evidence.

According to his ex-girlfriend, in September 2024, while the couple was still together, she told Banta that she was pregnant. He suggested that she have an abortion and offered to pay for it. She refused and told him that she wanted to keep the baby. However, Banta allegedly then ordered “Plan C” — an online website to access the abortion pill regimen by mail-order.

An ultrasound on October 17, 2024, showed a healthy preborn baby with a strong heartbeat; however, later that day, the victim met Banta at a coffee shop, where he had already purchased a beverage for her and some cookies. Security footage shows she drank the entire drink but did not eat the cookies. The next day, she began feeling extremely fatigued and experienced heavy bleeding. She went to the emergency room and ultimately lost her baby on October 19.

She contacted police, and according to a news release, she told them she thought Banta had “secretly added abortion-inducing pills to her drink without her knowledge or permission.” When police met with Banta, he told them he knew they wanted to speak to them about the loss of the baby, and he told them he had ordered the abortion pill from Plan C online.

As part of the investigation, police searched Banta’s cell phone and found that he had remotely accessed the phone and performed a factory reset, deleting evidence. He was able to do so because he works in the IT Department of the U.S. Department of Justice.

WHY IT MATTERS:

The abortion pill (mifepristone) has been under the FDA’s safety guidelines known as REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy), but those guidelines have been weakened over the past several years by both the Obama and Biden administrations. For 20 years, women were required to receive an in-person exam prior to being prescribed the abortion pill, and they were also required to take mifepristone, the first drug of the two-drug abortion pill regimen, in the presence of a doctor in case they experienced abortion pill complications. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA relaxed those safety rules by no longer requiring an in-person visit, and in 2021, the Biden administration allowed the abortion pill to be shipped by mail.

The ease and simplicity of ordering abortion drugs online opened the door for men to give women the abortion pill without their knowledge. Studies show that 64% of women who have undergone abortions felt pressured to do so, and when women stand up to that pressure and refuse abortion, they may be intentionally drugged with the abortion pill or even murdered. Homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women, and the number of men who have tricked women into taking the abortion pill is steadily rising.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Making the abortion pill more easily accessible — for even men like Banta to obtain — puts women and their preborn children at risk, even as pro-abortion states push to remove the REMS entirely, and the abortion industry continues to push for over-the-counter abortion pills.