woman sentenced to 8 years for 38-week home abortion

[WokingOnSunshine]

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

does anybody have a actual legit link from somewhere thats not either pro choice/life but a actual gov law or nhs site that states a unborn baby with ANY disability can be aborted up to due date. as i cant find one.

With regards to the late abortions for disabled children, i can fully understand why some women make that choice, and i would never judge anyone for it.
But it isnt something i agree with. Who are we to judge the worth of a disabled child's life?

I am the mother of a disabled child myself. He has severe cerebral palsy. He cannot stand, walk or even sit. He cant talk. He is fed through a tube via his stomach. He is eplileptic, and also registered blind. Some would say low quality of life. But if you take a look at my photo's its clear to see that he is as happy as any 'normal' child. He is always smiling & laughing, and has his own way of communicating. His life is extrememly worthwhile in my eyes.

What this woman has done, i would still see as a dispicable crime if it was done at 25 weeks. When you have an abortion, you are not killing a baby. You are stopping an embryo from fully developing into one.

After the 24 week mark, you are carrying a baby, that has every chance of surviving outside of the womb. It is fully formed, it has functioning internal organs. It is a human being, which needs to grow in order to make it stronger.

To think that somebody could do this to a full term baby sickens me to the stomach.

its not any disability but i think as the law stands two drs have to agree tjat tje baby would have poor quality of life or be life linited. but they allow it for downs syndrome for example and yet many many people with downs syndrome live happy and full lives.

its allowed if a mothers life is at risk ie in some cases like sevre obstetric cholitas or pre-eclampsia to name a few. or even because a womans mental health is deemed to be at grave risk if she continues the pregnancy.

The race thing still makes no sense to me. If the child was mixed race, or the product of an affair, how would its quality of life be reduced? It was a presumably healthy baby, no problems were picked up at the 30 wk scan.

I am totaly of the belief this child was born alive. Its the only explaination i can think of for her faliure to reveal where the body is.

She could clear her name & prove that the baby was still born. But she wont. Probably because it wasnt, and she doesnt want that to be uncovered, as she'll be charged with murder & face a longer sentence.

Why on earth would anyone allow themselves to stand accused of something so utterly horrific, if they can prove their innocence otherwise?

I dont agree with it joona, I'm just suggesting that maybe thats what she thought.

I dont buy that for a second beyond

I dont see why anybody in this country, in this day & age, would consider that a mixed race child, or a child conceived during an affair would have a lower quality of life than any other.

And I dont understand how a woman could kill her own child. She clearly doesnt have the normal thought processes that we have though, does she (not saying mentally ill! If she were mentally ill, I guess her thought processes could be similar to mine?)

8 yrs free bed & breakfast is not sufficient punishment for taking an innocent life

Solitary confinement.. big deal. They still get 3 free meals a day and a roof over their heads at the tax payers expense

Imprisoning someone isn't about starving them, making them sleep in the open air (I know that this was done is early 1800s, as they used to tie prisoners to stocks & make them sleep under tarp in early settled Australia - but I believe this to be outdated), denying them nourishment to make sure they can survive their sentence. It isn't about neglecting them.

It is about the prisoner losing their liberties. Being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to socialise, when they can see their families etc. Telling them when they are allowed to buy stuff (basic living needs) out of their tiny wages when they are allowed clean clothes/bedsheets. Losing any say over their lives & being controlled by others. It is not about denying them their basic human rights (although I know that some would like it this way). And yes, they may have TVs, but that doesn't mean that they are allowed to watch them at will. They are told when to watch & what to watch. Their mail, the newspapers, radio, TVs etc are all edited. And any of this can & is taken at will should those in charge deem it necessary.

You can't starve them because they committed a crime.

*different .. well i guess thats something we'll have to agree to disagree on.

For me, i think what i see as justice depends on the crime.

For things like burglary, fraud etc, fair enough. But when they have intentionaly taken away another human beings right to live, i dont see it fair that they have any basic human rights themselves.

However, you are entitles to your own view, just as i am entitled to mine.

The alternative is to starve them then? Make them sleep without a roof over their heads? Make them ill so they have to be hospitalised & have yet more money spent on them!

And you think that death is a suitable punishment for a crime? Yet you don't believe in terminations? Are you one of those people who picket outside abortion clinics for the foetuses right to life, yet would happily see the drs who perform them die?

Double standards.

If you had bothered to read all the comments i have made on this thread, you will have seen one where i stated i am not anti-abortion.

I am pro-choice. But having an abortion when the foetus is not yet a fully developed baby is a bit different from killing a child when it is days from being born. Or in this matter, likely to have been born alive and killed post delivery.

So before you state that i am "against terminations", i suggest you actualy read what i have previously written with your eyes open.

joona like many threads on MN there are always a few who will twist the wording of your post to make you look like a numpty. Please ignore these few who choose to do this (they seem to digress from the main argument by picking at people's choice of words).

lovechoc yeah i have noticed lol. But they are failing to make me look like a numpty, because i have an answer for every invalid point they throw at me :D

Its ridiculas though isnt it. You cant air your own views without those who disagree trying to take the moral high ground.

When is infanticide not met with a custodial sentence?! It is murder and that carries a mandatory life sentence doesn't it?!

No. usually psychiatric treatment is given:
The maximum penalty for infanticide is life imprisonment. However, in practice a non-custodial sentence is usually the outcome. This non-custodial sentence will however, often be subject to a treatment or a hospital order.

Infanticide was included in the previous administrations consultation about the overhaul of the murder laws. That consultation hasn't led to any action yet, and even if it did the outcome of it was that infanticide would remain a separate offence to murder.

The reason we have a separate offence of infanticide is because it predates the introduction of the "diminished responsibility" defence to murder, and it was recognised early on that such a provision was so obviously needed in many such cases.

There is a lack of logic in people's being terribly indignant about the suffering caused to the foetus in a late abortion and then accepting that it's ok for severely disabled children. Do we not believe that disabled children are capable of feeling pain? That abortion doesn't hurt if you have an extra chromosome?

cory i agree with your comment. As i said upthread, i have a severley disabled son myself, whose life is just as worthwhile as any other child.

I can understand however why some people choose this option. If the child will spend it's life in unbearable pain i suppose in some respects its the kindest thing to do. But if the child isnt given the chance, how do we know for sure?

I was told by doctors that my son would not live as far as his 1st birthday.. he will be 6 next month, and is as happy as my other son :)

joona, you seem to be against a woman terminating a pregnancy at any stage, this is what I was referring to.

Sorry, at a late stage not any stage

You said 'against terminations' so i took that as being terminations in general, which i am not.

But as i said, there is a difference between having an abortion when the foetus is not yet a fully developed baby, and ending a pregnancy where the child is a fully developed human & able to survive outside of the womb.

So yes, i am against late abortions. Although im not "one of those people who picket outside abortion clinics" as you suggested. I just take the view that if a foetus has developed to the stage where it is a functioning human being, it has a right to life. And taking away that life is unjustified unless it posed life threatening risks to the mother.

In this case, that baby was just days from being born. IF it really was stillborn as she claimed, why will she not prove that & clear her name, by revealing where the body is buried?

Probably because it was NOT stillborn and she knows this will be uncovered by an autopsy, and that she would then be facing a murder charge & much longer sentence than she is now.

Well said joona. Totally agree

As someone on another forum said, there is no whatever why she couldn't have gone to a hospital, asked for an induction (explaining the circumstances to medical staff) and put the baby straight up for adoption, signing any paperwork that was needed there and then, and telling them on no account to call her at home about the matter should they ever need to make contact.

Although I believe that having a child adopted in the UK is not really that easy these days, and women who abandon babies are almost invariably tracked down, with the story given a really good media airing and all attempts made to reunite mother and child. Which sounds to me like a really good reason for making it legally possible to give up a baby at birth with no questions asked, since there are women out there who need this channel.

IMO, this woman sounds at best extremely disturbed.

Do we not have 'safe haven' type laws here? For instance you drop the baby off at a police station/fire station with no recriminations?

Is it really that needed though? This case was so extreme and exceptional. They didn't even have a name for the offence, they had to use a case from the 1800s or something to find a similar scenario. There are so many options for women nowadays and we live in such a tolerant society that there is just no need for it to get to this point. She must have know she was pg before she first went for the scan at the clinic she just chose to bury her head in the sand. she concelaed another pg form her dh right to term before and even now he is standing by her so she wasn't in fear for her safety so she could have arranged an adoption even with his knowledge. I just really don't believe there will ever be that many cases where mothers would need to abandon their babies no questions asked. It could do more harm than good, as many mothers may regret this later, so leaving a way open in which the baby or mother could trace one another somehow in the future is far better imo.