24-year-old Tiffany Gillespie was pregnant with her third child when she was shot to death by her boyfriend Aaron Fitzpatrick, according to a police report. The murder happened on February 16. Police described the victim’s relationship with Fitzpatrick as being “troubled.” The police maintain that Fitzpatrick killed Gillespie because she was pregnant with his child and refused to have an abortion. The couple had apparently been arguing for hours when the shooting occurred.
Gillespie’s body was found in the basement of her South Philadelphia home by her mother. Her two young children were in the house at the time of her murder. Fitzpatrick was apprehended shortly afterward. He was a suspect from the beginning, partly due to the fact that the couple had a history of domestic disputes. The police had intervened in the past.
Gillespie was six months pregnant. Her preschool-aged daughter and eight-year-old son are staying with relatives.
Earlier this year, in Broward County, Florida, a man has been convicted of two counts of murder for killing a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. The court determined that Edward Jermaine Babbs killed Stephanie Rabsatt by shooting her in the abdomen and head on Oct.1, 2009. Rabsatt was almost 8 months pregnant with a son, who she had named Jayden. Babbs, who was the baby’s father, had been pressuring her to abort. Her refusal to have an abortion and the imminent birth of her son was what triggered the murder, according to police.
Rasblatts’ family was in the courtroom when Babbs was sentenced to life in prison. They tearfully told reporters that they felt justice had been done but that the grief of losing their loved ones would never go away.
“She was a brilliant child,” Rabsatt’s mother, Karen Moore, said after the verdict was revealed, “She was loving and kind, and she loved her baby.”
Also this year, a man who killed his pregnant girlfriend on her due date after she refused an abortion has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the crime.
On November 8, 2011, LifeNews covered the tragic death of Niasha Delain, 25, who was brutally stabbed on the day she was supposed to give birth to a son. The stabbing, which was described by the prosecutor as “a crime of almost unimaginable viciousness” took place in October of 2008.
The convicted murderer, Derrick Reed, had been pressuring Delain to have an abortion for months, according to her friends and family and police. Under current law, Reid could only be charged with one murder despite the death of Delain’s full term son. The baby, who could easily have survived outside the womb, was to have been named Aidan by his mother.
Delain’s mother, Towanda Wimms, has urged state lawmakers to make it a crime to take the life of an unborn child during the commission of a homicide.
Although abortion is touted as a woman’s choice, men often put pressure on their partners to abort when they don’t want to support a baby. When the pregnant mother resists, violence can be the result. In fact, murder is the number one cause of death among pregnant women. (1) Many times, the father of the baby is the perpetrator.
More information about the law protecting unborn babies from criminal violence and other legislation in Alabama has been compiled by Americans United for Life here.
- I.L. Horton and D. Cheng, “Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality-Maryland, 1993-1998,” JAMA 285(11): 1455-1459 (2001); see also J. Mcfarlane et. al., “Abuse During Pregnancy and Femicide: Urgent Implications for Women’s Health,” Obstetrics & Gynecology 100: 27-36 (2002).
LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Terzo is a pro-life liberal who runs ClinicQuotes.com, a web site devoted to exposing the abortion industry.
