adminPlaxcedes Hove Court Reporter
A BULAWAYO couple from Njube suburb allegedly connived to abort a three-month pregnancy and threw the foetus into a culvert. The couple was arrested after police received an anonymous call about the crime. Maureen Moyo, 28, and Jabulani Moyo, 30, appeared before Western Commonage provincial magistrate Willard Maphios Moyo charged for unlawful termination of pregnancy.
Maureen and Jabulani were remanded out of custody.
They will be called back to court by way of summons as the state could not produce a medical report as an exhibit.
Prosecuting, Kingstone Mageza said the two are husband and wife who connived to terminate their unborn baby at three months.
“The two intentionally terminated a pregnancy by taking an unknown drug which they realised posed a real risk of terminating pregnancy,” he said.
The court heard that on Sunday at around 9AM at a culvert parallel to Burombo Road, a dead foetus was found by Khohlwani Tshuma and he made a report at ZRP Njube.
The police attended the scene and took the foetus to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).
On September 22, at around 10AM, the police at Njube received an anonymous call alleging that Maureen was the one who dumped the foetus.
Investigations were made leading to the arrest of Maureen and Jabulani.
The two pleaded guilty.
The husband admitted that he provided the drug, which was supplied by an accomplice who is still at large, to terminate the pregnancy.
The accomplice — who was only identified as Mike in court — was paid $30 for providing the drug.
In a statement, Maureen stated that she terminated the pregnancy because it was unplanned.
“I’m taking ARVs and I have a one-year-old baby I’m also taking care of. I also terminated the pregnancy because it was unplanned”, she stated.
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