Woman prosecuted for illegally aborting her baby at 34 weeks pregnant

[Endlessdark]

What are your thoughts of this? My heart breaks for the poor baby. There was so much time to do it earlier if she wanted to. ☹️ obviously don’t know her reasoning behind it so I’m interested to hear others thoughts! It’s said she claimed to only be 7 weeks pregnant and as it was during covid, she was sent abortion pills in the post.

https://apple.news/AEftuMVmFQ2quaiDb-lN78Q

what do you think, is it right that she was prosecuted or do you think there needs to be a reform of this law?

I'm not sure that her children are being punished. A mother who is capable of this is not a person to be bringing up children.

Indeed.
That woman is a dangerous fool, prioritising her love life over the life of her child.

No. Still up for debate. Aborting a child at 7-8 months in is murder.

I meant legally. Murder is after birth.

I can't be impartial on this because DS was born at 33 weeks and it was terrifying but he is now a thriving 6 year old

Lockdown isn't to blame...

The prosecution said Foster made a number of internet searches between February and May 2020, including "how to hide a pregnancy bump", "how to have an abortion without going to the doctor" and "how to lose a baby at six months".

Lockdown was late March 2020? In February people were cracking on with life and she was plotting to KILL her unborn baby.

Its not legally murder because of how we define murder.

But, I think caution is needed if we think that means that something not being legally murder means it's not 'morally murder'.

The law has the ability to grant personhood - amd take it away. Killing slaves was rarely legally murder, many genocides weren't legally murder. The definition just depends on the version of personhood we legally have at the time.

Its entirely possible for one society to have killing a 6w embryo as murder, as the embryo is given full personhood in that society. In another society, killing a month old baby is not murder because they dont get personhood until they are 1 (for example).

Or think back to not very long ago when your husband couldn't legally rape you. It didnt mean he didn't actually rape you, just that legally he didnt.

So we need to be very careful when using the law as a justification for moral lines.

If she had given birth to the baby at the same gestational period then left them alone to die she would be facing a murder charge. She had so many options from birth control, to morning after pill, to legal abortion, to the adoption system, but she chose to kill the baby at a late stage in her pregnancy. For those saying she isn't a risk to society I would argue, she was absolutely a risk to the baby she had chosen to carry to a viable term.

@Babyboomtastic I wasn't defending her morally. Child destruction (which was her original charge) isn't a morally better crime.

(I don't know the details enough to know why the child destruction charge wasn't continued with)

For the paramedics to have tried cpr, does that not suggest Lily had not been stillborn and could have lived?
(Horrible thinking what she she experienced, as in Lily, NOT the 'mother'.)

The baby was born not breathing and the post mortem said stillbirth.

Not everyone who is locked up is a danger to society, we do imprison people for punishment as well.

I wonder if the law will change now after this case and very late intentional abortions such as this will be classed as murder.

I don't really see what difference that would make. If they had continued with the charge of child destruction she could have been sentenced to life in prison, same as if she'd been charged with murder.
And for this specific case, presumably whatever reason they had for changing from that initial charge would have applied if it had been murder anyway.
I don't see why it would need to be called murder to make it worse - child destruction is equally awful isn't it?

I think it is barbaric to kill a baby at 32 weeks. I just can't get my head around it. How is this not seen by some posters as being equally horrifying as women who give birth and allow lovers to abuse and neglect their child to death, and we've seen too many of these cases.

She did a terrible, awful, unimaginable thing.

Like many other commenters, I think that as she was so far on she could have given birth and had the baby adopted. This wasn’t an abortion, it was murder or at the very least manslaughter, I’m not a fan of termination of pregnancy but I do believe a woman has the right to choose, but it should be done as early as possible. Not after the baby is actually a fully formed human being, it’s horrific. So yes I do believe a prison sentence is appropriate.

Exactly this. It's shocking!

I don't understand. If she'd explained the problem to the hospital then she could have been induced and then just had the child adopted. I'm sure a sympathetic obstetrician would have been on board with that. She wouldn't have even needed to have seen the baby if she had sedation afterwards.

What? They wouldn't induce at 32 weeks for no health reason, would they??

(To be clear, I'm not saying that therefore she was justified. She should have ended the pregnancy much sooner.)

I remember reading through comments on mumsnet a while ago where people were debating abortion, in the context of tfmr for downs syndrome. Lots of posters argued that abortion should be completely up to the woman, because nobody would ever terminate a healthy full term pregnancy if all restrictions were lifted.

I think this case shows that some women sadly absolutely would, although it would still be rare.

If it wasn't for covid, this couldn't have happened as the woman would have been given a scan and then (hopefully) offered other support if she was too far along for a termination. In my opinion her and her baby were let down by the NHS, deciding that it wasn't important for pregnant women who wanted abortions to have the usual standard of care. Yes she lied, but another woman could have genuinely believed they were under 10 weeks when they were say, 12/13 weeks pregnant and taken those pills without anybody checking if it was the correct thing to do.

My main takeaway from this whole thing is that women should have access to safe, legal abortion within restrictions and guidelines and apparently during covid that all went out the window. It would be more worthwhile holding an investigation into that and putting the system that gave her the pills on trial.

For all we know the mother was abusive

Apparently She was trying to hide the pregnancy so going to term and then giving the baby up for adoption wasn't an option in her mind.

@User678945 she was 5 or 6 months pregnant before lockdown began so can't blame that, plus had been throughout the pregnancy googling how to's re abortion and what sentence you could get.