Woman arrested after stillbirth due to suspicions she had ‘illegal abortion’ (in the UK)

There's a line that needs to be drawn somewhere, about women killing new born babies. Personally I'd see it always as a woman under extreme stresses, and in need of support. Reading the comments about abandoned new borns, many people don't see it that way and consider it an evil act.

What about when a baby is born extremely prem and the mother makes no attempt to save it?

Whatever the truth behind this case, it was appallingly handled. Poor, poor woman.

Abortion is only legal through the correct channels. This is also to protect the fetus/baby from any suffering in the process, and also the mother.

A mother who has an abortion not through the “correct” channels is not protected in any way by being criminalised. The purpose of abortion being illegal is to try to pacify people who disagree with abortion, not to protect any one.

Women can be protected from backyard providers the same way everyone is protected from unqualified and unsafe healthcare - by making it easily available on the NHS and cracking down on practitioners who aren’t qualified. None of which would allow for the arrest of a woman just after a still birth or miscarriage.

Indeed. Shame on me.

Abortion clinic without proper facilities (no anaesthetic machine etc) offers to perform illegal abortion (24+3) on a woman when she is too pregnant to safely have such type of abortion (it would have been a surgical, under sedation, at 24+3 gestation - should in fact be a feticide in fetal med dept in a hospital and then a medical abortion - these 2 procedures are not the same in any way).

The Abortion clinic involved is one of the leading providers in the UK.

Shame on me.

The police have time to deal with this?

You'd imagine they'd struggle for the time. After all, there's protesting women to assault and arrest, arrested women and girls to humiliate and degrade, not to mention the arduous tasks of abducting women, raping and murdering them before burning their bodies in a ditch. I'm amazed they've got the hours spare to be pursuing the possibility of an illegal abortion.

As for @AgathaMystery , reporting an abortion clinic? REALLY? Shame on you.

Agree with scrolling and glamourous there may well have been other safeguarding issues here, but I do not know the facts. Thinking about other situations where trafficking girls and women is happening, the police would not need to arrest the women concerned unless it is for her own protection. They should look for the pimps and “boyfriends” and question them. As I said I don’t know all the facts but equally shocked that this arrest happened at all.

GingerCake2018 · Today 09:59
My friend had an unplanned pregnancy early in a relationship, her partner was still pressuring her to have an abortion right up to the legal limit, my friend then went into premature labour during the 24th week giving birth at exactly 25 weeks. Fortunately her child survived and, after a very long stay in NICU, is thriving.

My point is that the chain of events that happened to this poor women are hardly unique, and therefore I would have expected a hell of a lot more time than the 24 hours from stillbirth to arrest to be needed for the police to build a strong enough case to arrest her.

The police have behaved shamelessly.

Absolutely, GingerCake.

Briefly, a non registered abortionist or trying to do it yourself. Both are illegal, and for good reason. That being said it sounds like the police were very heavy handed in this case.

But even if she had had an illegal abortion, not through the correct channels, and the police wanted to look into who that back street abortionist was, how dare they arrest her in hospital after her ordeal xand hold her for 36 hours. What possible threat was she to anyone. How could they think that any but the most sensitive approach was warranted?

//
This

Pardon my ignorance but what constitutes an illegal abortion in the uk?

This is a really frightening story

Shamefully damn auto correct.

My friend had an unplanned pregnancy early in a relationship, her partner was still pressuring her to have an abortion right up to the legal limit, my friend then went into premature labour during the 24th week giving birth at exactly 25 weeks. Fortunately her child survived and, after a very long stay in NICU, is thriving.

My point is that the chain of events that happened to this poor women are hardly unique, and therefore I would have expected a hell of a lot more time than the 24 hours from stillbirth to arrest to be needed for the police to build a strong enough case to arrest her.

The police have behaved shamelessly.

I’d be really interested to know which hospital she was ‘treated’ actually.

Because the legislation was temporarily changed and every prescription for postal drugs goes past a medic and a pharmacist.

And meanwhile the police are far too busy and stretched to investigate the majority of paedophiles apparently. Because they are so prolific the police don’t bother, unless they are extremely serious and repeat offenses.

But a woman who is no risk is immediately found, arrested and held after one phone call?

Curious.

UK HCPs are almost always very supportive of women's right to abortion do not have a track record of trying to "stop abortions"--this isn't the Republic of Ireland circa 1970. They will have seen some major red flags going on here.

I would like to think this is correct, and that they reported only out of concern for public safety, however there are HCPs who are anti abortion. I had the unfortunate experience to encounter a gyne ward (yes Gynaecology) in the U.K. where every doctor on shift at the time was an anti abortionist and denied me treatment for a medical gone wrong, despite deeming my situation serious enough to keep me in hospital for 2 days until someone was in who would perform a D&C. I would never ever trust that a woman would be safe turning up at a general hospital for real or suspected abortion aftercare after that experience.

I don’t know what the police were thinking arresting this poor woman in this case. Absolutely disgusting.

This sounds like it should have been dealt with as a safeguarding matter to ensure that the woman was not being abused. I disagree with taking her into custody.

I don't blame the authorities for asking questions where things don't add up. Time and time again they are berated for missing red flags. Part of being vigilant and professionally sceptical means that sometimes unusual but innocent situations will have to be looked into.

I'm going to guess that the lawmaker is elevating the foetus above the child because the foetus may be male.

"“Last week, the Ohio legislator who sponsored a bill to ban nearly all abortions in the state said “to end the pregnancy of the child is not going to erase those wounds or those scars” and that a child conceived from rape or incest “still has the right to life.”"

There is a very sick and extreme religious spread in the US. The rights of the woman come down the list and a foetus comes first even if conceived of rape, domestic abuse, poverty, incest.

Sickness there of the mind, sick and spreading.

The SNP have failed to do any work on buffer zones, despite many calls for them to do so. It was a Green MSP who did the work.

The baby was less than 24 weeks old, so she could have legally got an abortion. In fact she was surprised when the baby was still born that she was as far along as nearly 24 weeks, which doesn't sound like she would have been panicking that she wouldn't have been able to have an abortion. She's contacted an abortion clinic to find out her options.

There's nothing in any of that to suggest that she would have tried to abort her baby illegally. I guess she may have said something that alarmed the HCPs but after a woman has given birth by herself to a dead baby unexpectedly I'm pretty sure she could be saying things in shock like "This is my fault, I wanted an abortion" etc. She would hardly be the first woman to blame herself for a miscarriage/stillbirth because she considered a miscarriage.

As someone with a medical condition where its quite normal to have 10+ miscarriages/late term losses, I find stories like these chilling.

Without knowing the details enough I am happy that it's likely the HCPs felt they had to report to Police. But the arrest is absolutely unreasonable and unjustified, there was no risk to the public by this woman. 'If' the police felt they had to interview they could have done a voluntary interview at a more appropriate date. Serial domestic abuse perpetrators will get voluntary interviews, parents who hit their children will often get voluntary interviews, I've known men accused of rape and CSA to get voluntary interviews. This is just disgusting misuse of power.

Obviously there's 2 sides to this story, the police were alerted for a reason and the cps would not have allowed them to continue investigating if there wasn't some evidence. I obviously don't know the truth but there's a law - 24 weeks and if broken yes it's a criminal matter

Blessed be the fruit.

*Unless the fruit is 10 and raped by an adult male.

Not all fruit are equal.*

@nocoolnamesleft was quoting The Handmaids Tale. It really does feel like we're sleepwalking into something along those lines. Abortions being made illegal in the US and Poland. A woman being arrested for a stillbirth in the U.K. An economist suggesting British women be penalised through tax if they don't have children.

A woman seeking a late abortion, and feeling desperate enough to seek illegal means to obtain one, will have in the absence of physical health need a serious mental health need if she is willing to go through this. In which case she needs serious support and criminalising her will not help her or anyone else.

It's not like a woman is going to make a habit of getting pregnant and then having a late illegal abortion is it?

Where is the public interest in this being a criminal matter for the woman?

I can see why illegal abortionists need to be dealt with criminally, but not vulnerable women. That is unjust and cruel.