Mum sentenced to 28 months in prison for abortion pills

[mumoftwobarnyboys]

Used after the cut off point of 10 weeks.

Regardless of how far gone she was, surely this isn't right?

It is her body, despite me morally really thinking what she did was very wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/woman-in-uk-jailed-for-28-months-over-taking-abortion-pills-after-legal-time-limit?CMP=twtgu&utmmsource=Twitter&utmmedium=&s=08#Echobox=1686577294

@AgathaSpencerGregson Yes, it seems their operation is legal, but the processes should be investigated. Without their relaxed procedures this woman, desperate, insane or evil - I don't know- could not have done this.

My son was born at 34 weeks. I can’t get my head around her actions at all. Her defence is piss poor.

This.

And if the telemedicine to 10 weeks option is removed because of this case, there will be a lot more later term abortions.

If a partner wants to force a woman to miscarry, then there are violent ways to do that.

The supplier was following the law as amended by the Secretary of State for health on 30 March 2020. There are no grounds for prosecution there, though they may review procedures.

@riotlady I don't know if they are still doing this, I hope not. I don't think it was necessary as hard lockdown was not for that long, travel for medical appointments was allowed. Were abortion clinics shut altogether and for how long? But even if it was necessary then, it should not continue.

I suspect one of the reasons BPAS lost its shit over this case, and joined the crazy medics in trying to lean on the judge, was because it was so vocal about the desirability of continuing the pills by post regime post Covid, saying explicitly that abuses such as this would not occur.
I actually don’t think that position is undermined by one wholly exceptional cases such as this, but they are obviously a bit sensitive about it. Should shut their trap in my view

@SheilaFentiman A partner can avoid prosecution by coercing a woman to sign consent forms. I do hope they review procedures.

What procedure would you suggest?

It was indeed raised that coercion/misuse might be easier with this method of giving the pills. As @AgathaSpencerGregson BPAS said this would never happen. They should definitely review their confident predictions as they turned out wrong.

@SheilaFentiman I think a scan or definite dating of the pregnancy would be good. I also think women should be seen by a doctor, before the pills are given. However, I am not an abortion worker so I don't know. I would hope BPAS has access to expert advice on how to improve.

The body never recovered, baby adopted etc is in relation to another case/woman that the judge used when determining the sentence length

Read it again

Agatha no need to get personal? Do you think i don't think it awful for everyone involved. I just think the poor woman needs counseling not punishment.
I also think most health professionals would agree with me not you. It is not our job to co-erce women into having babies.

I still feel their predictions were largely correct to be honest. It's obviously never going to be a faultless system but this case highlights how rare this is. The easier the access to abortions before the legal limit, the less likely this is to happen.
It does also highlight the very precarious nature of abortions and the laws surrounding it. I wonder how this case would've been handled had the baby survived but was very disabled.

It’s because BPAS can see this is dangerous precedent to set and will deter women from being honest and undermine services.

I do think as a society were severely undermining the psychological and physical health complications abortions have on women's bodies. I don't think there is enough support given and the whole procedure has really been belittled.

The entire point of the telemedicine (particularly in the pandemic) was to give women access to healthcare remotely. Abortion is healthcare.

I don't believe a face to face abortion appointment would involve a scan. AFAIK, there is no other way of telling the gestation of a pregnancy. Certainly antenatal appointments simply ask questions about last menstrual period and date from there, unless a scan (which doesn't happen until 12 weeks at the earliest) indicates that this is likely to be incorrect.

(I had one EDD changed post scan, which was annoying as I knew when my LMP was, and I was more right than the scan when it came to the birth)

"I still feel their predictions were largely correct to be honest. It's obviously never going to be a faultless system but this case highlights how rare this is. The easier the access to abortions before the legal limit, the less likely this is to happen."

I agree, @Foxesandsquirrels

There are something like 200,000 abortions a year and the majority are before 12 weeks with a smaller but significant number between 12 and 20 weeks. Thereafter they usually follow an abnormality scan or similar and there are not many.

@Foxesandsquirrels I think I agree that it seems a bit gung ho. It seems one could take these pills and not be physically seen by a doctor at all, not sure if I have got that right? It's over 20 years since I had any contact with these kinds of services. They were pretty awful back then, but I would hope they have improved.

Likewise. That's a viable baby. A that point, it's murder.

That is correct, yes.

It was difficult to see a doctor in the pandemic.

I think this woman had the normal access to termination for 6 months before she decided to take the pills. Easier access to telemedicine allowed her to do this, so I can't see it as reducing later terminations really.

"Easier access to telemedicine allowed her to do this, so I can't see it as reducing later terminations really."

There's a logical fallacy in this statement.

My post was in respect of your general points about telemedicine as a source of this healthcare. Any termination that can be done early and via pills avoids a later termination (by instrument). Easier access to early termination services logically reduces later terminations.

Separately, this woman lied to access medically unsuitable services.

I will leave it there.

Yh and I think belittling an abortion is largely at fault. I think we've been really screwed over by this type of wording. It's given health services an excuse to not give further care and actually it's really not safe. A lot of women struggle to conceive post abortion. The psychological effects are long lasting for many women and this isn't just because abortions are shamed by some. I don't think reducing a pregnancy to 'a clump of cells' is really very helpful when someone is making this difficult decision. Women aren't idiots, they know this 'clump of cells' is gong to grow into a proper baby, that's why they've made the choice they have. There is no shame in that choice but there is also absolutely no support after.
I think there needs to be far more support for women in general tbh but this won't happen, because as soon as I say the above, an army of women will attack me and say I'm not pro life, that it is just a clump of cells. The amount of people defending this woman on here is astounding. The baby could've easily survived and been very disabled.

Why are you ok with abortion at 9 weeks but not 29?

Have you actually looked at pictures of abortions? Big difference between 9 weeks and 29 weeks.

Women need support.