AIBU to be think that most women would be jailed for their abortions as so many of us embellish?

[Upsetaboutabortionbeingacrime]

1 in 3 women in this country obtain abortions at some point in their lives.

I sincerely believe that as abortion is a criminal act in the UK and to obtain one without being open to prosecution, a woman needs two doctors to permit it. because of this many many many women emphasise and maybe even embellish, or lie, to obtain that. Will it really mean you cannot afford your rent / mortgage and you'll be homeless? Probably not, but you just DO NOT want a(nother) baby. And actually a woman should be able to just NOT WANT a(nother) pregnancy or a(nother) child. Yet the woman is forced to say what needs to be said procure an abortion.

Therefore thousands of women every year would be jailed just like this woman has been.

The jailing was NOT because of the late term of the pregnancy, it was because she lied to obtain it and therefore she's in jail.

Lots and lots women have done that. Lots.

Can you not read the subtleties of the law surrounding this OP. The entire construct is deliberately created to cover all the grey areas. 'In good faith' etc is subject to scrutiny but only up to a point, as is 90% of the rest of it. Any individual would have a devil of a job proving a GP did not act in good faith and therein lies the basis for the whole thing and why it fundamentally works.

Hardly any woman that wants an abortion, provided her pregnancy is less than the cut off, is granted it.

There is no individual that can bring a case because they are not allowed access to medical records of another person without their consent etc. All these grey areas are covered and it works.

Has anyone on this thread who is condemning this woman read the research about these very rare cases? It shows that women in these situations of unauthorised late term abortion are invariably facing immense psychological pressure and get into a state of mind where all they know is they ‘cannot’ be pregnant. This is very different to killing a child - they enter a state where they cannot think of the pregnancy as a baby, even at a late stage.

The judge’s summing up mentioned that the woman has spoken of being tormented night and day by flashback to the birth. She very likely has PTSD.

There is absolutely zero benefit to anyone from a custodial sentence. The woman won’t get the help she needs. Her existing children will go through further trauma. And as for being a deterrent - it’s laughable. That’s like saying we should criminalise suicide again to make people more worried about the consequences of trying to kill themselves.

I really cannot cope with the OPs inability to grasp what people are saying, and just keep incorrectly stating that things are facts.

Don't you think if you were right, that fewer doctors would sign off, and more people would be prosecuted?

Can you consider you might be wrong based on reading the thread?!

Can we please get past abortion killing the baby! She in effect commit significant self harm breaking down the tissue of her placenta and inducing labour. She obtained the drugs by deception yes, but would she be in the same situation if she convinced a doctor to give her other drugs which taken as an overdose actually killed the baby? What if she had threatened to commit suicide if she wasn't induced so she was and the baby died. In the same vein should woman who continue to drink, smoke, so drugs etc whilst pregnant also do 28 months inside as all these can cause premature labour and foetal demise.

She is a lady who needs significant support if she thought the only option to her was self harm.

She's in jail because she took the drug outside of the indications for the drug and knowingly did so. This resulted in the destruction of a foetus that could have just been born and adopted away

Local community would think it was very weird if pregnant lady with husband and other children announced they were having the youngest adopted

No you don’t get to that. You don’t get use a term used to describe abuse towards people who disagree with you, without being challenged.

Your therapy speak makes you look like you have no valid argument. And is ridiculous.

carrying and birthing a child you don’t want carry’s huge risk of causing grave injury to the woman’s mental health. That’s a fact. Stating that fact, is not gaslighting.

and using that term belittles victims of actual abuse. Which is usually women. The people who are pretending you are so passionate about protecting. That isn’t protecting women.

I understood she had met a new man and didn't want him to know she was pregnant. If she was going to lie, it would have made sense to tell him she is carrying the child as part of a surrogacy agreement and have it adopted. That would have made him like her a whole lot more than this shitshow I'm sure.

This is the bit of the legislation that allows any woman to have an abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks gestation:

• (a) that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family;

The continuation of a pregnancy is always a greater risk than termination even for completely healthy women carrying much wanted babies.

There is no need to lie.

OP you're acting like a bit of a clown here.

You cannot get an abortion 'for any reason'. It needs to be one of four reasons

In theory, yes. In reality, no. I was silly snd got myself pregnant at 18. Simply didn't want to be a mum, none of the aforementioned criteria applied to me. I went to the GP and said I wanted an abortion, they didn't pry into my circumstances, they simply referred me and an abortion was carried out.

It doesn't follow that doing something you don't want to do creates a risk to your mental health.

I agree about pregnancy and childbirth carrying at least a minimal, tiny risk of grave outcome so I'm glad here, too. When thinking very flexibly, I'm not sure everyone would consider that a harm. I'm also pretty certain most women don't say 'I want a termination because I might die or come close'.

Technically, yes but you’re being deliberately pedantic. You know full well why she in particular has a prison sentence.

According to BPAS, 98% of abortions are carried out under a.

It is completely legal.

https://www.bpas.org/get-involved/campaigns/briefings/abortion-law/

Yes kill. They perform fetocide - that is the actual term used - by injecting potassium chloride into the baby’s heart . Glossing over this is not helpful to women.

and as seems to be ignored, women don’t need to lie pre viability as the risk of continuing the pregnancy is greater to their physical health due to common pregnancy complications, as people above have stated. I’m late pregnancy this is no longer true.

It wasn’t illegal, it was an unwanted pregnancy. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy that she doesn’t want will have a negative impact on her mental health, therefore fulfilling the the first criteria. Can you really not understand that? Being forced to go through an unwanted (and, in my case, accidental pregnancy - mini pill failure) would have impacted my mental health. Which would have negatively impacted my three existing children (mentally and financially).

They could see all of this on the paperwork they had from asking me about previous pregnancies , existing children etc and are clearly able to deduce the negative impact the pregnancy would have. They don’t ask you to spell it out and beg them for an abortion, which for some women could be traumatic, they ask background information which basically fills in the blanks for them.

Depends on what that thing is? We are talking in general.

Going for a short walk you don’t want to may not negatively impact your mental healthZ

But we are talking about pregnancy. Pregnancy take a a huge toll on the body and always carries physical risk. Child birth, even a straight forward one, is physically and mentally demanding.

A pregnancy that is unwanted 100% risks grave injury to mental health. And no one asks anyone to prove it. You simply need to know it’s a risk. Grave physical and mental injury is a risk from any presence. The risk increases if you don’t want the child. It’s obvious dedicating your body 24/7 to 9 months of a physically and mentally demanding task that you don’t want to do is a risk to anyone’s mental health.

I sincerely believe that as abortion is a criminal act in the UK

That is a lie. Therefore the rest of your crazed rant is pointless

I sincerely believe that as abortion is a criminal act in the UK and to obtain one without being open to prosecution

Abortion is not a criminal act.

Do you live in the UK?

Do you meant that 'you believe' as in people 'believe' in a religion or pink unicorns?

In other words, it's your opinion?

There is “the law” and then there is the Interpretation and Application of the law … that’s why we have “case law” in this country.

That said .. Abortion should be freely available on demand.

What I don't understand is why is abortion legal but euthanasia isn't. We should be able to choose to not be alive as adults

Believe me if euthanasia was legal, I would have chosen it years ago in my early thirties. However I have to suffer on in a life I do not want to be in.

"I've read the law.

THIS JUDGMENT was not about the stage of pregnancy, it was the way in which the abortion was obtained. Sure, she had to lie because it was 24 weeks +, but it is that she lied, not why she lied.

Beyond this woman, let me spell out my concerns.

As a woman, I cannot legally have a termination unless one of those four conditions are met. I have been pregnant, and had several children. However if during any of those pregnancies, at any time if I wanted to end the pregnancy I COULD NOT unless one of those four conditions were met. In my case they would not have been. If I said 'oh yes, I think my mental health would suffer' I could get one. But I would have lied, and therefore I could be prosecuted.

I'm saying AIBU to think that actually many women don't satisfy those four criteria, but they have terminations anyway even BEFORE 24 weeks. the law provides for those prosecution.

If you read something else into the law, then please elucidate as I'd be very glad to hear it."

Having a child you do not want puts mental health of the woman at risk though. It's an unknown - some women's mental health would be ok but others would really not be.

Doctors seem to agree with that, otherwise we would be reading about the number of women turned away from abortions under healthcare and a rise of back street abortions. And the fact that back street abortions is a genuine concern against lowering abortion limits shows that some women would risk being seriously hurt, or worse in order to terminate a pregnancy shows that the refusal of a safe abortion is actually detrimental to both their physical and mental health.

The case in question though - obtained an abortion after the 24 week deadline. It's not the same thing at all.

This fear mongering needs to stop. British women are not going to be imprisoned for having an abortion prior to the legal gestation. This woman you're referring to was 32-34 weeks pregnant and her Internet search history shows that she knew that she knew roughly how far she was along. She was also pregnant for several months prior to lock down so thats not an excuse for not having an early abortion. She had to give birth anyway so there was no need to commit the evil act of poisoning a baby that would've highly likely survived outside the womb.

I know someone who was born at 28 weeks and she isn't disabled. I'd class 30+ weeks to be pretty much full term. These prem babies need steroids to help with their lungs, but they are fully formed babies.

Because medicine and drs are supposed to preserve life.
And a foetus up to so many weeks is not classed as 'human life' (ie viable) in the same way as someone who has been born.

Also, the concerns around euthanasia are that it would be a way of hastening death for financial reasons (for beneficiaries) and the person who was unwell may not be of sound mind to agree to euthanasia.