MADISON, WI (WSAU) — A New York City woman will be on probation for selling abortion drugs through the mail.
Ursula Wing, 42, was sentenced to 2 years of probation and fined $10,000 for using her mail-order jewelry web site as a front for selling the drugs. A Wood County man was one of her customers, and is charged slipped them into his pregnant girlfriend’s water bottle, hoping to kill her unborn baby.
Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson noted at the sentencing that while Wing had the right to disagree with the legal requirements surrounding the distribution of Mifepristone and Misoprostol in the United States, she nonetheless committed a crime in selling these drugs, which she knowingly obtained from an offshore pharmacy in India.
Judge Peterson explained that such conduct created a danger to the public in two ways. First, it allowed people to obtain drugs such as a Marathon County man who allegedly used them in an attempt to induce his girlfriend to abort her 120-day pregnancy without her knowledge or consent.
Second, Wing could not vouch for the safety of the product she was distributing, as evidenced by the fact that she had no testing protocols in place, and had to trust the pills she was smuggling into the United States from India were safe and effective.
Jeffrey Smith of Grand Rapids is facing charges for putting RU-486, or Mifepristone, into his girlfriend’s water. She noticed an unusual taste and called the police. A criminal complaint said Smith tried to order the drugs twice from Wing.
Smith is charged with 1st degree attempted homicide of an unborn child. His trial is scheduled to begin on December 7.
