AIBU to think throwing a mum-of-four in prison for having an abortion is never the answer?

[therescoffeeinthatnebula]

Spotted this on Twitter and haven't seen it already being discussed.

Apparently, a woman is being sentenced today for having an abortion over the limit during lockdown. I don't know of the circumstances (can't find anything other than the Sunday Times article), only that she already had four children and claims she didn't know exactly how far along she was.

I think most of us would agree making medical appointments during lockdown was bloody difficult and that it's even harder to attend any appointment if you have children, given you're not normally allowed to take them with you.

Whatever the truth, I'm appalled to see a woman potentially thrown in prison for trying to seek an abortion during lockdown, especially when you look at how violence against women is treated. I'd have thought referring her for mandatory counselling would be more of an appropriate outcome than prison because finding out you aborted what could have been a viable baby has got to mess with anyone's head.

It's all very sad - she should have been able to access proper services earlier - but prison, to me, should never have been on the table as a consequence.

I didn't actually realise that abortion in this country was blanket illegal and that our rights to seek abortions up to the limit are actually exceptions to that law rather than a piece of legislation that stands on its own.

What I'm reading from this is a woman and a feotus who were both failed by lockdown and the system in general. Pills by post without sufficient checks is what's really criminal, of course for someone in turmoil unable to access the support they evidently needed it's going to be appealing. It's so sad that the judge even recognises the affect on her children, including one with additional needs, of her imprisonment yet still sentences her. The fact that BPAS and other healthcare professionals who work in this area have written in support of the woman is very telling, and I think the judges sentencing was in part to prove a point. The effect of lockdown wasn't reiterated enough in the closing statement in my opinion.

So why not a solution. Where the mother is alive and the baby also is alive?

(I don't think anyone disputes the need for a medical abortion if the mothers life is in danger)

@eggsbenedict23 oh i fucking do Im child free by choice and i spent years asking to be sterilised. Refused. Ive been on the Pill Femodene and Logynon The implant Norplant. The injection Depo Provera. And now at 50 the fucking Mini Pill which i pay for myself because access here is so shit.

I have NO IDEA where i am with menopause because these synthetic hormones mask whats going on in the body. I have no idea whether periods have stopped naturally or due to the mini pill. I want to stop taking it but doctors are now saying women should take this until 55 What has happened today is terrifying. Im now too scared to stop taking it

I don't think she was in need of a fucking mammogram.

What a brilliant post! Completely agree and well articulated

The judge pretty much says he would have given a suspended sentence, but legally could not because she didn’t plead guilty at the earliest stage in the magistrates court.

So she probably did not have good legal advice? This woman needs psychiatric help,not locking up.

The tweets by the journalist include the sentencing remarks by the Judge.
https://twitter.com/hannahalothman/status/1668266647935754240?s=46&t=7Gap5ClVK-d0arrRWs0BVw

The PPs question wasn't 'would you like to be killed?' though. It was 'how would you feel if you'd been aborted?'. And if I'd been aborted I wouldn't have an opinion, on that or anything else. An aborted foetus has no opinion on anything before being aborted or after.

I was just pointing out that you could access some services during lockdown and perhaps if she had contacted her GP (and we'll never know if she did or didn't) she might not be in this bloody awful situation and facing prison and being away from her other children.

It's a bloody mess and I feel so sorry for her and her children

For anyone interested in supporting this lady I’ve just received an email from Womens Equality about campaigning against the prison sentence decision. Please take a look and let’s see how we can do something constructive to help

https://www.womensequality.org.uk/call_abortion_reform?utm_campaign=announce_eng_wal_abort_act1206&utm_medium=email&utm_source=womensequality

This woman lied. She knew she was pregnant in December but didn't request the pills until May. This is nothing to do with lockdown, it's someone who thought they could get away with breaking the low due to lockdown. (Why she didn't seek a perfectly legal abortion in the December nobody has reported on)

What she did was wrong imo. I don't necessarily believe that a woman's bodily autonomy always supercedes the right of the foetus. I am pro choice but there are grey areas. If you do take that view, then you must theoretically believe that a woman in the early stages of labour has the right to terminate?

I very much disagree with the prison sentence. Its utterly pointless.

Lots of vulnerable women can't afford decent legal advice.

I think it’s awful it happened but surely anyone must be able to see that no one chooses to try and start a late term abortion because they think it’ll be a lark. It’s quite clearly an act of some desperation driven by complicated circumstances. Late term abortions are always going to be driven by complicated circumstances because they are really a pretty awful experience to go through and women don’t opt for them for no reason.

It’s terribly sad and I wish other options had been available to her. It strikes me with better access to medical care someone would have known her circumstances and could have offered things that might have helped (counselling, support with housing in case she was afraid of being with her spouse etc) then she might well have seen another way out. It frightens me this is being prosecuted as a crime. It’s a bloody thin line between prosecution here and doing the same because you don’t agree with the doctor who approved a late term abortion and it’s a line I wish we were no where close to. Forcing someone to stay pregnant against their will is just as deeply uncomfortable to me as the idea of a late abortion in the case of there being every chance of a live birth and no significant issues with the child if that path was taken. In the end though I’d always err on protecting a woman’s right to bodily autonomy because goodness knows it’s something that’s constantly being chipped away at the moment.

Because that would involve a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and then giving birth against her will. And then that baby either being raised by a mother that never wanted it or being put into an already struggling care system.

It's her body, so she decides how the human being using her for life support leaves her body.

“Among the many tragedies in this case is that you did not indicate your guilty plea at the earliest opportunity in the magistrates court. Had that been done, the sentence of imprisonment which I am now obliged to pass would in law have been capable of being suspended”.

In other words, he would have suspended the sentence but he is legally obliged to imprison her because she didn’t plead guilty from the start. So I would say she has definitely received very poor legal advice.

The Guardian article has updated with this detail: The court also heard that the woman had made various Google searches, including “I need to have an abortion but I’m past 24 weeks” and “Could I go to jail for aborting my baby at 30 weeks.”

So any suggestion that she didn't know how pregnant she was - doubtful. She knew what she was doing.

Same would apply to a 6 month old baby killed then? They wouldn't have an opinion on being killed before or after either.
Or a person with signifcnat learning disability they wouldn't have an opinion before or after.

So they less important, more disposbalem than someone who is able to articulate a view on how they'd fill about being killed?

She pleaded guilty before going to trial so unlikely to be because she had poor legal representation. People plead not guilty then change their minds later on against legal advice all the time

It has been reported that she was aware earlier but thought she had suffered a miscarriage and couldn't get a scan to confirm. Of course the scan would have instead dated the pregnancy and confirmed she was still pregnant. Rightly we don't have all of the circumstances and information, I find it very telling though the support this woman has from people who dedicate their careers to working in this line of work.

Well it looks like her four kids are going to go into that struggling care system because that Times journalist has tweeted that her family has distanced themselves from her.

Unless the ex husband steps up They are his kids

Why should ‘the baby be forced to die’? Because a pregnancy is unwanted and abortion is a legal and viable option. You don’t need to like it, and no one needs to care that you don’t like it.

Abortion is a fact of life, and has been practiced since time immemorial regardless of its legal status. Indeed, nearly half of all abortions worldwide are carried out in countries where it is illegal. Illegal abortion is unsafe abortion, and unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal death worldwide. That’s the reality of ‘pro life’ laws, and why bleatings about the sanctity of life ring hollow.

Ah but they will be adopted straight away surely. Since you know a PP said she could have given the baby up for adoption to a couple who wants children. Which must mean there no children in care because they have all been adopted