The case of a Lancaster County, Pa., woman charged with endangering her teenage daughter by procuring abortion pills for her and then covering up the birth remains after her daughter’s at-home abortion will proceed to trial after the woman waived her preliminary hearing this week, the local district attorney’s office said.
Shannon Noelle Jones, 50, waived her preliminary hearing before District Court Judge Michael Hess August 6 on charges of endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and conspiracy to conceal the death of a child, Fox 43 reports, based on a press release from the DA’s office.
Jones is accused of endangerment of her then-17-year-old daughter by buying chemical abortion drugs online for the teen against the drugs’ recommended usage and without medical oversight in May 2024.
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Online sales and otherwise unregulated access to chemical abortion drugs is an ongoing concern following reduction of FDA safety standards for the drugs in phases over the last nine years. Pro-life advocates continually call for the safety standards to be reinstated for the sake of women and have called upon the Trump administration to address the safety issues surrounding chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
Mifepristone has also been the focus of extended media coverage following the release in April of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) study finding that the abortion pill is 22 times more dangerous than previously recognized in FDA data.
Jones and her daughter Sydney Jones, now 18, then buried the birth remains of the younger Jones’ aborted child in the back yard of their Lancaster County home endeavoring to conceal the pregnancy and birth from the elder Jones’ husband and others, authorities say.
Sydney Jones was charged separately in the juvenile system with concealing the death of a child and abuse of corpse.
Abortion drugs are FDA approved for use through 10 weeks in pregnancy, though abortion is otherwise legal in Pennsylvania through 24 weeks. Sydney Jones claimed to police that she was in her first trimester when she took the abortion pills, but prosecutors said she was actually around 20 weeks pregnant at the time.
The autopsy of the remains also indicated the gestational age of the child was about 20 weeks, according to prosecutors. Because forensic analysis could not ascertain whether the child was born alive no homicide or assault charges were filed, the Fox station said.
Prosecutors said a local certified registered nurse practitioner had told police that taking abortion drugs past 20 weeks of pregnancy would have put the minor Jones in “grave danger, especially outside a hospital setting.”
Sydney Jones told police her mother had purchased the abortion drugs for her online because she was not old enough to buy them herself, and despite the two having already been told that she was too far along in her pregnancy to have an abortion, authorities say. Sydney Jones kept her baby’s body hidden for days, they say, before burying it in the backyard.
Local pro-life advocates decried the tragic scenario resulting from unregulated access to abortion pills.
In the days following the clandestine burial of the birth remains prosecutors say Shannon Jones told her daughter she was afraid of being caught, allegedly sending her a text message saying that she was “paranoid” about their actions being discovered and expressing fear of the two being arrested or her getting divorced.
The investigation began after a witness stepped forward with photos of the newborn baby, which Sydney Jones had shared with a friend.
Shannon Jones is currently free after being released on her own recognizance after a preliminary arraignment in June, the FOX 43 report said.
LifeNews Note: Lisa Bourne is Managing Editor of Pregnancy Help News and Content Writer for Heartbeat International. This originally appeared at Pregnancy Help News.
