Police Say Arkansas Man Raped Teen, Forced Her to Have Abortion

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 16, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Police Say Arkansas Man Raped Teen, Forced Her to Have Abortion Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 16
, 2006

Bryant, AR (LifeNews.com) — Police in the small Arkansas town of Bryant say they are investigating 41 year-old Jeffery Cheshier, who they accuse of impregnating a 15 year-old after he sexually abused her. Afterwards, he allegedly drove the victim to an Illinois abortion business where he forced her to have an abortion.

Authorities say Cheshier began sexually assaulting the teenager last year. He was eventually arrested in October.

That’s when the teen told police she had gotten pregnant and said Cheshier drove her to the Hope Clinic for Women abortion facility in Granite City, Illinois, near St. Louis. There, he made her have an abortion.

The Hope abortion center has come under fire from pro-life advocates for years for luring Missouri teenagers across the border for secret abortions.

KSDK-TV obtained records from the Bryant police showing that Cheshier’s car was at the Illinois abortion center in March. They obtained the photo from Angela Michael, a pro-life advocate who frequently disseminates abortion alternatives information outside the Hope facility.

Sally Burgess, Hope’s director, told the television station she knows nothing about the case.

"Anytime a teenager lets on to us that she’s in any sort of jeopardy, we are going to do what’s in her best interest and that’s report it to the authorities," she claimed.

But, Michael says that didn’t happen in this case.

She told LifeNews.com in a statement that the Bryant police department contacted her "to see if we had any information concerning this case and we informed them we had evidence confirming a crime had been committed."

Michael confirmed the young girl, who she said had been raped twice, was at the abortion center on the day in question.

She also told KSDK that she think abortion businesses need to be doing more to protect teenagers.

"If they are trained to ask questions, they need to be asking the right ones," Michael said. "They need to be protecting these young girls."

Sergeant Harold Edmonson told the television station this is the first time he’s seen a case where a rapist took a teen to another state to hide his crime through an abortion.

"I’ve been in law enforcement 20 years and this is a first for me. We need to make some stricter laws on this," he said.

However, the abortion-sexual abuse connection has come up before and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline launched an investigation in his state concerning multiple cases of teenagers getting abortions after incidents of statutory rape.

Kline lost his bid for re-election to pro-abortion candidate John Morrison, who will likely drop the probe.