Article By Steven Ertelt
A former University of Toledo surgical resident who fraudulently obtained abortion pills, crushed them and forced them on his pregnant girlfriend was only sentenced to six months in jail after the drugs killed her baby.
Hassan-James Abbas, 32, was sentenced September 11 by Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Joe McNamara to six months at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio and two years of probation.
The judge held 18 months in prison in reserve if Abbas violates probation.
Abbas pleaded no contest in May to unlawful distribution of an abortion-inducing drug, disrupting public services, identity fraud and deception to obtain a dangerous drug. Charges of abduction and tampering with evidence were dismissed under a plea agreement.
Prosecutors said Abbas used his estranged wife’s name and personal information in December 2024 to order mifepristone and misoprostol online after his girlfriend, Jona Affholder, told him she was pregnant and did not want an abortion.
He mixed some of the drugs into hot chocolate and tea.
On December 18, 2024, prosecutors said, he pinned Affholder to a bed, held her down and forced crushed pills into her mouth. She escaped and tried to call 911. Abbas seized her phone and ended the call. Affholder went to a hospital, where she was told the abortion drug killed her baby
Affholder did not speak at sentencing. She had objected to the plea agreement.
McNamara rejected Abbas’s account of the events. “Your actions were incredibly selfish and horrible,” the judge said. “I’m glad you apologized to the victim. But the majority of your statement was about how your actions affected you. I find your conduct to just be self-centered.”
Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, called the sentence a failure of justice.
“This is a horrifying failure of justice. Abbas obtained abortion pills online under his wife’s name, drugged his girlfriend whom he’d gotten pregnant, and murdered her unborn child with the pills. Now he will spend just six months behind bars for his heinous crimes,” Baer said.
“The abortion industry has cried ‘my body, my choice.’ But their online abortion scheme has allowed yet another man to force his choice on his pregnant girlfriend’s and unborn child’s bodies,” he added.
“This is all because President Biden changed FDA protocol, enabling predators like Abbas to order abortion pills online without a doctor or pharmacy involved. Every candidate running for office must make it clear to Ohioans: Do they think abortion pills should be available online with no doctor involved?“
“This isn’t ‘reproductive freedom.’ Jona and her unborn child deserved justice. Every mother and unborn child deserves the protection of our laws.”
Baer said the Center for Christian Virtue will demand action in Washington, D.C., and Columbus.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said Biden-era mail-order rules let abusers buy the drugs “as easily as ordering an Amazon package.”
“They can viciously attack women and kill babies, and our laws are so inconsistent, they can be back on the street in no time at all,” she said.
Abbas, whose medical license was suspended, could be released from jail by Spring.
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