Woman jailed over (very late on in pregnancy) abortion, released on appeal...

[FadeAwayAndRadiate]

Carla Foster: Mother jailed over lockdown abortion to be released - BBC News

So should she have been released? Or made to serve her sentence?

YABU, no she should NOT have been released.

YANBU, yes she SHOULD have been released.

Interested to hear people views.

I don’t know enough about her, the situation or her mental state to say whether I think she should be in prison. Unfortunately, it does sound like she rekindled her relationship with her ex and then decided to end the pregnancy because it was not his child, if this was only motivation and there are no mental health issues then I do think she should be punished because she killed a viable baby, not a foetus, because of convenience. However, there very well could have been mental health problems which led her to do this and coercion (from her partner as an example).

I voted YANBU not because I didn't think that she did something awful but because her punishment should have always been something that allowed her to remain with her children. She was obviously in a poor mental state to do something like this and Covid obviously allowed her to slip through the net where others wouldn't. She isn't a threat to society and her actions will haunt her forever. Can you imagine birthing a 32 week old baby? It must have been horrific.

I don't think that "mental health issues" should give a person carte blanche to kill a child. A child is defenceless and should be protected.
Again, I had mental health issues, I was suicidal with PND. I didn't kill my baby though, I went to hospital. And that was in 2020.

It's true that your body is your body, but that is an argument used to ensure you can decide within the limits of the law - not when the baby is at term. In that case, how come the girl who killed her baby immediately after birth couldn't say, it's my baby, it's in my house...

In this case I think she deserved jail time, because she kept the pregnancy for so long and knew she was pregnant aswel, she only wanted an abortion when she got back with your ex who wasn't the father of the baby she was carrying.. Smh

*her

I don't feel any need to have an opinion.

This was not a matter of a few days or couple of weeks even beyond the 10 weeks for an abortion by tablets. This was well beyond the level where a premature birth results in survival in most cases. So a prison sentence is justified in my opinion.

I’ve always been in two minds over this case.
Although i don’t agree with really Late abortions there isn’t an upper Limit in the uk if the baby has abnormalities or the mothers life’s at risk. So it’s not really fair to imprison her unless they change the rules.
i think it heavily depends on her backstory as to whether she should be prosecuted

I think she is no different than someone who kills their baby soon after birth. It was a viable, almost full term baby. She had to labour whether it was alive or not, it's not as though by killing it she protected her own physical health. It was utterly selfish, in my opinion, to take away this poor baby's life. If she didn't want it she should have put it up for adoption.

So a 15 year old child that killed of her baby moments after she was born is a murderer? And a 40 year old woman who killed her baby ( and she was a viable baby) is not ?

I have very mixed feelings on this one. I'm pro-abortion 100% but I found what she did distasteful and cruel. At 32 weeks gestation, a foetus is quite far along in its development. I cannot imagine she did not feel the foetus moving around unless there were problems with the baby that were not disclosed.
Did she deserve the sentence? Depends on the state of her mental health, I guess.

There's questioning a law you don't agree with by campaigning for change and breaking the law, the two are different things.

So you think it should be legalised but essentially DIY as it’s not a service we could implement? If somebody handed you the injection, could you inject the heart of a 5lb baby to kill it, watch it die on a screen, then deliver its body and see its face knowing you had ended its life? Or do you just want ‘somebody else’ to do this, but not be involved with the messy side yourself?

Why have an abortion that late, its horrible aborting a baby at that late stage.

Late termination, or termination at all does seem to bring up strong feelings - personally I don't know why she did this, if she did it because she was carrying another mans child and wanted to be with the boyfriend without a baby from another relationship, this doesn't sit comfortably with me.
I do feel that any woman should have autonomy of their bodies, within the legal parameters so in this case unless she was suffering with mental health issues, she should not have terminated in this way imo

Yabu I think she should have served her sentence.

Surely you're not suggesting that any woman who's got children should never ever go to prison - purely because she's got children ?????! No matter what crime she does, a MOTHER must never go to prison??? Come on @AIBot that is a ridiculous thing to say.

It's also suggesting women who have birthed a child are somehow superior and more valuable than those who have not. And you support abortion to full term?! There are many things wrong with your post!

I don't think jailing her makes the world better or is in the public interest in any way. It shouldn't have happened and I am glad she has been released. Mandatory counselling and supervision would have been a far better choice.

And abortion needs to move fully out of the criminal justice domain and into the domain of healthcare legislation.

I also do not think the girl who killed her newborn at 15 should have been jailed. Again, no benefit to society except to create another criminal.

I was born at 27 weeks over 40 years ago. I find it shocking that she could do this at such a late stage, she should be made to serve her full prison sentence.

Is it just the fact she's 15 that you feel this way? What age do you think a woman should be before she's accountable for murdering a defenceless baby?

Carrying a pregnancy you do not want, in its self will cause ‘grave mental injury’ as well as all the potential physical injury’s of pregnancy and birth.

I think this case highlights the need for safe, legal abortion as soon as possible as late as necessary.

People witter on about the 24 week limit and ‘viability’ forgetting there are approximately 16 weeks between 24 weeks gestation and term. That’s 16 weeks of carrying a pregnancy you do not want. 16 weeks of grave mental injury and a potential threat to the woman’s life. No obstetrician in the land would induce preterm birth because a woman does not wish to be pregnant anymore so the only alternative is safe and legal abortion.

Why do you think it’s not a service that could be implemented? There are already doctors that carry out late term abortions.

Only in cases where the baby has severe anomalies that would cause them suffering. That’s the justification. Virtually no doctors would carry out such late terminations for social reasons as there’s very little, if any, moral justification.

What are you basing this on? The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have come out in support of decriminalizing abortion, there will of course be doctors willing to carry them out.