Boy charged in 'pesticide abortion'

A 16-year-old has been charged with negligent homicide for buying pesticide that his pregnant 15-year-old girlfriend drank in a botched attempt at forcing an abortion.

The couple worked in a ceramics factory in Gongyi, Henan. The girl initially asked her boyfriend to help her get an abortion, but he told her to solve the problem herself.

The girl reportedly then asked that he buy her pesticide so she could commit suicide. The boy refused, but later agreed when the girl told him that, in small doses, pesticide could initiate an abortion.

The girl drank the poisonous fluid and was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Her father contacted police, who determined that the girl had died by her own hand. But investigators decided the boy should also be charged.

The Shanghai Institute of Family Planning Technical Instruction says that it is in contact with at least four girls under the age of 19 each week.