Police Department and emergency services were called to the South Carolina home of 20-year-old Jocelyn Byrum, who was said to be experiencing a miscarriage. She admitted to police that she had taken pills to induce labor with the intention of ending the pregnancy.
In an email to Live Action News, Michael Chavis, Police Lieutenant, Police Department
City of Rock Hill, said, “The medicine was Misoprostol. We are not disclosing how it was obtained.”
Misoprostol is the second drug in the two-drug abortion pill regimen, the first being mifepristone. It causes contractions to force the baby from the uterus. Byrum was 27 weeks pregnant (the very end of the second trimester/beginning of third) when she took the misoprostol. A baby born prematurely at this age has a greater than 95 percent chance of survival.
Byrum did not want to have the baby and that “[i]nvestigators determined that Byrum was aware of how far along she was in her pregnancy and deliberately took the medication because she did not want to have the child.”
WYFF noted, “Police said Byrum then failed to render any aid or call EMS for assistance with the newborn child following the birth.”
Emergency services personnel gave the infant lifesaving aid, and brought the baby to the hospital for further treatment.
Byrum was arrested on Monday for the attempted murder and unlawful neglect of a child. Her baby remains in critical condition.