Pregnant Woman Stabbed with Abortifacient-filled Syringe
in Brutal Attack; Baby Survives

By Liz Townsend

The brutal stabbing of a pregnant woman with an abortifacient- filled syringe in the Bronx, New York, has sparked renewed calls for a fetal assault bill in that state. The baby boy survived the attack and was born November 28, but his mother does not know if the abortifacient caused any lasting disabilities.

"I didn't know what to expect -- I was prepared to have whatever God gave me," Joy Schepis told the New York Daily News. "I'm very relieved -- I couldn't have asked for more. He seems to be fine: he hears, he sees, he's strong."

Baby Michael David Mitchell Schepis weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20 inches long at birth. "Both [mom and baby] are doing fine," Schepis' mother, Emmy Bellusci, told the New York Post. " Both are doing really good. He looks perfect."

The alleged attacker, 44-year-old Dr. Stephen Pack, has been charged with assault and "committing an abortional act" on the mother, nurse Joy Schepis, 31. Pack, a married father of two, and Schepis, a divorced mother of a two-year-old boy, both worked at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, and had a brief affair that left Schepis pregnant, according to the Post.

When she refused to abort the baby, police say, Pack confronted Schepis outside the hospital April 14. Pack pulled out a hypodermic needle filled with methotrexate, a powerful anti- cancer drug that is also used for abortion, the Post reported. According to police sources, he stabbed Schepis six times in her thigh and buttocks, shouting, "I'm going to give you an abortion!"

"He tried to kill our unborn child," Schepis told the Post one week after the attack. "I relive it in my mind every moment. I relive it over and over again. And when I sleep, the nightmares start. I'm physically and emotionally sick."

The unborn baby was only six to eight weeks old at the time. Sonograms conducted after the assault showed that the baby's heart was still beating, but it was not known if the methotrexate would cause a miscarriage or birth defects. "It's not up to me," Schepis told the Daily News. "It's up to God what happens to my child."

Subsequent sonograms showed that the baby continued to grow, and that the child was a boy. Schepis told the Post that she chose the name Michael for the "archangel who fought off Satan." Although Michael seemed healthy when he was examined after birth, doctors still do not know whether the methotrexate damaged his tiny body.

"There are no apparent birth defects," Schepis's lawyer, John Mangialiardi, told the Post. "[But] as part of the syndrome, this could still affect the functioning of the child."

Injected into a pregnant woman, methotrexate destroys the tissue that provides nourishment to the unborn baby (just as it attacks fast-growing cells when used to treat cancer). The baby then starves and suffocates to death, deprived of food, fluids, and oxygen. The methotrexate is followed by a prostaglandin, which causes contractions to expel the dead baby, as in the RU486 abortion technique.

Pack was arrested at the scene of the attack, and arraigned on May 24 for assault in the second degree and abortion in the second degree. If convicted, he could receive up to 11 years in prison. Pack's next scheduled court date is December 12, according to the Bronx District Attorney's Office.

In October, Pack's lawyer informed the court that he will offer a defense based on "mental disease or defect," according to the Post. If found not guilty due to mental disease, Pack would be committed to a psychiatric ward instead of receiving a prison sentence. "That's not enough for me," Schepis's mother told the Post.

New York does not have a law that treats unborn babies as separate victims of violence. Bills have been introduced in both the State Assembly and Senate, but they have remained in committee and have not reached the floor.

Abortion supporters strongly oppose such bills. "This legislation is the first step toward recognizing the fetus as a person and just part of the larger assault on a woman's right to choose," Sharon Levin, spokeswoman for the National Women's Law Center, told ABC News. "Really, the purpose of the bill is to elevate the fetus to the same status as a living being, thereby beginning the process of granting it legal rights."

Treating the unborn child as a living being -- as a separate victim of violence -- is absolutely the point of fetal homicide and assault bills. "Hard, horrifying cases like these reveal certain simple biological truths: There is not one, but two violated bodies, and two injured victims here, each of whom cries out for justice," wrote columnist Maggie Gallagher.

"Are our hearts too hardened by abortion politics to make the punishment fit the crime?"