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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

woman sentenced to 8 years for 38-week home abortion

508 replies

WokingOnSunshine · 17/09/2012 12:57

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19621675
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204471/Mother-Sarah-Catt-terminated-baby-week-date-using-medication.html

OP posts:
joona · 18/09/2012 16:35

Mental health issue my arse. lovechoc's last comment says it all as far as that is concerned.

BlackberryIce · 18/09/2012 16:38

How insulting to those with MH issues!

She did not have any mental illness.....she is in prison, not a psych hosp!! Ask yourself why? Read the article titty

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 18/09/2012 16:40

Joona, the US has capital punishment AND a really high homicide etc rate. Capital punishment does not work.

joona · 18/09/2012 16:42

Wether it worked or not, its no more than they deserve.

perceptionreality · 18/09/2012 16:45

'Maybe it would reduce the amount of sick things that go on if the people committing these crimes thought they may lose their own life as a result.'

Research shows that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent - the US is a good example of this, where there are many people on death row.

If our government was the kind that forced people to have hysterectomies then we would have to put up with other fascist laws as well and we would all live in fear like the citizens of North Korea. Who wants that? I certainly don't want it for my children.

I also disagree that prison is luxurious. Where is your evidence for this please? People who commit particularly awful crimes have to live in solitary confinement.

perceptionreality · 18/09/2012 16:47

'Wether it worked or not, its no more than they deserve.'

So, you think murder is wrong, but using murder as punishment is ok? Why do you think you have the right to decide who should live or die?

joona · 18/09/2012 16:53

Solitary confinement.. big deal. They still get 3 free meals a day and a roof over their heads at the tax payers expense. Some of the families of the victims are paying for that. Disgrace.

I dont think i have the right to decide who lives and who dies. But neither do those who take the lives of innocent people. Which makes them far from innocent themselves. Its not my right. It's my opinion.

LadyClariceCannockMonty · 18/09/2012 16:55

What perception said.

EldritchCleavage · 18/09/2012 16:59

Bit of a derail into capital punishment arguments. She can't be sentenced on the supposition that she killed the child since this cannot be proved. There is no body, we do not know whether the child was born alive or dead.

She did have a psychiatric evaluation, she was tried and sentenced on the basis that she is sane, so the 'must be a mental illness' supposition is also misplaced. You can't extrapolate back from a terrible crime to say that the person who did it is mentally ill. Maybe, maybe not, but sane people are capable of gruesome things, as history and any glance at the headlines makes plain. This woman is very obviously troubled, mixed up, and odd, but as far as the court is concerned, not so much that she lacked agency or the ability to make different choices. She was sentenced accordingly.

People may find it comforting to 'other' these offenders as a distancing mechanism saying they must be ill but it is just, to me, a way of not facing up to the fact ordinary, even normal people sometimes do repellent things.

getmorenappies · 18/09/2012 17:08

even normal people sometimes do repellent things.

I think the WW2 German concentration camps were a testament to this, a lot of the guards were formally just average people doing average jobs. Bakers, postmen etc etc, not psychopathic.

pumpkinsweetie · 18/09/2012 17:20

I believe that once you take a life, you should give up your own.

joona · 18/09/2012 17:28

Nobody knows the facts. But if the baby was stillborn, & she's admitted to burying the body, why wont she reveal where it is?

Seems likely to me that the baby was born alive, & the reason she wont reveal where it is buried is because she knows an autopsy will be carried out, which will prove that the baby was not stillborn.

Otherwise, what has she got to hide? She could prove to everyone that she is not the monster she's being perceived as, but she chooses not to.

Sometimes its the things you dont say that speak the loudest.

SauvignonBlanche · 18/09/2012 17:29

I'm saddened that so many posters don't know how late terminations can be carried out, see medically induced abortions here.

5madthings · 18/09/2012 17:37

thats intetesting to read. i know a few people who had late abortions for mefical reasons. mone were offered the option if a general aenasthtic. all 'gave birth' the baby had died in one case and in another an injection was given to stop the babues heart and then labour was induced. these were after 15wks but before 22wks of pregnancy.

i wonder how much variation there is according to hospitals, bed space etc?

Flojo1979 · 18/09/2012 17:46

I agree with u joona I think she's hiding the location because he wasn't stillborn and because he wasn't her husbands baby.

joona · 18/09/2012 17:50

From reading the link posted by sauvignon blanche i get the impression that a late medical abortion involves taking 2 types of drug.. one which stops the babies heart beat, and another which causes the lining of the womb to break down, therefore inducing a miscarriage.

She bought these drugs online, and had done much research into it. So it seems highly unlikely to me that the baby was stillborn.

joona · 18/09/2012 18:00

That should say was not stillborn through natural causes... But because she took medication to stop its heart while it was still inside her. Which means she actively killed it.

At nearly full term, this is not an abortion. It is murder.

FatimaLovesBread · 18/09/2012 18:04

But the reports of the court case only mention misoprostol which is used to induce the labour and not any of the drugs used pre-misoprostol to actually stop the heart

joona · 18/09/2012 18:08

But why would she need or want to induce labour, with only a week to go until baby was due?

cakeismysaviour · 18/09/2012 18:13

Because her husband was away that week so she would have wanted the baby to be born whilst he way away so he wouldn't find out.

perceptionreality · 18/09/2012 18:17

I have read about 'partial birth abortions' before. The information about them isn't publicised.

perceptionreality · 18/09/2012 18:19

I think there must be much more to this case than we know.

I do find it odd that her husband would not have noticed she was in the late stages of a pregnancy.

SauvignonBlanche · 18/09/2012 18:19

I first came across them as a student nurse on a gynae ward, I was shocked.

cakeismysaviour · 18/09/2012 18:22

There was no abortion.

She concealed the pregnancy from her family/friends. She used drugs she bought herself to induce labour and gave birth by herself. Her husband was away whilst she gave birth. She didn't want her husband to know as she feared that her secret lover was the father.

She wanted to conceal the fact that the baby had ever existed.

She claims the baby was stillborn. That is possible, although does seem rather convienient. Since there were no abandoned babies that could have been hers, either the baby really was stillborn or she killed/sold it.

joona · 18/09/2012 18:23

Didnt she buy them weeks before? But they came from india, and didnt arrive until she was 38 weeks... Just by coinsidence the week her husband was away.