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

Pumpkin please don't take my word for it. Maybe I am wrong. Hopefully I am. People don't seem to be aware of it so I probably am :)

You are right stealth, technically if the baby has an abnormality the late abortion is legal, but obviously with advances in screening and hcps discretion etc this would only ever happen with severe abnormalities thata re incompatible with life, as most would have been spotted earlier/parents counselled etc. It is very rare to have a termination after 24 weeks nowadays. Not that there aren't certain circumstances where it may be appropriate. This lady's case was not one of them imo.

Absolutely horrible. To intentionally kill a baby at full term, well the judge is right to say that it goes beyond manslaughter. Eight very deserved years behind bars I think. Poor baby.

It's definitely true.

I was offered genetic testing at 36 weeks (which may have shown a life limiting illness). I would have been eligible for a termination. I didn't go ahead with the testing.

Cleft palate syndrome can be very different from a simple easily corrected facial deformity though.

agree
"What a tragedy. I don't really see what purpose is served by imprisoning her - except to punish someone who didn't co-operate with the police."

What can be gained is that she will learn a lesson not to murder children and obviously be unable to be impregnated in prison which will save another innocent baby from her pure satanistic ways!!!

theres no way an abortion would be allowed late on for cleft palate.
i can't believe that is legal

Eight years isn't long enough IMO. What a horrible selfish woman.

It's not abortion, it's infanticide and she deserves to go to prison. The baby was possibly born alive and she refuses to reveal its whereabouts (denying it a proper funeral) because she killed it at birth. This is the likely scenario. Her children now have a sibling that they will never know the whereabouts of.

I also wish people would stop linking personality disorder to mental illness too.

She'll have had to deal with pregnancy concealment (maybe) and a full labour. I'd have had sympathy if she had just abandoned the baby in a place it would be found. But not for actions leading to its death.

evil bloody woman 8 years not long enough .

I am finding it hard to agree with some of the posters who say she doesn't deserve punishment. Yes it is a tragic story and I do feel sorry for her as she clearly has problems and the experience must have left her traumatised. You could say that about any muderer though. If the child's father had killed the baby moments after it was born at 38 weeks would you argue that he shouldn't be sent to prison either? She had other options. But she chose to kill her baby at full term, and not report it's death and conceal it's body. That's illegal. If she is mentally unwell, this would have been taken into account by the courts system and she would have a treatment order and not a prison sentence. The fact she has been put in prison indicates she is legally "sane". If someone was responsible for killing my 38 week unborn child I would want them inprisoned. Why does this baby not deserve justice as well?

Agree that abandoning the baby in a safe location would have been preferable x 1 million. Perhaps this country needs anonymous, safe, secure baby drop boxes (I have heard of these abroad, can't remember where). Still deeply sad but at least the baby would have had a chance at life.

This person just gives mentally ill people a bad name People bandy this term around far too much. It's an insult.

She's an evil bitch, pure and simple. Just like that Victorian baby farmer who killed all those infants (can't remember her name atm)

I cannot understand why she would not give any defence at all. Even if she had killed the baby after birth she could have concocted a 'mental health' mitigation, which would surely have shortened her sentence. I think it would be really valuable to learn why she mounted no defence at all.
Have to say, as the public story stands I think she deserves at least 8 years.
But something is nagging, suggesting there is far far more to this story than has been made public.
It has been said she was a very attentive mother to her two children she raised.
Either her psychological state was completely not recognized by her her defence team, or she is such a pyshicopath that it was so well masked

I agree with the sentiment Property.

But drop boxes are not a good idea. People should take responsibility for their children. Wanted or not. Drop boxes are just a way out for people who dont want to face their situation. Abandoning babies should not be encouraged.

However yes, it is preferable to killing the poor thing.

"white" there was a case in recent years where a baby was terminated for cleft palate at a very late stage. But I don't know any other details of the case so don't know if it was actually as simple as that.

So after reading the bbc article it seems she had already given up a baby for adoption, had 2 abortions, and tried to have another but was past the legal limit. Why didn't she just go on the pill/get a coil or implant fitted/use condoms?!? I know it's not 100% effective but she clearly didn't want children, so why not prevent that happening in the first place.

I hope she suffers for the rest of her life for what she's done. Evil woman.

blimey chip i'm really really shocked at that

Do you have Safe Haven laws there? Here you can drop a baby up to (I think) three days old at any hospital or fire station without question.

I think she needs to be somewhere she cannot have more children. Yes, she is obviously mentally ill, but so was Andrea Yates when she killed her five children. You can't just let it go.

Mothers guilty of infanticide rarely get custodial sentences as mitigating circumstances usually apply.

I can't believe this doting mother of two children with a complex and difficult obstetric history doesn't have a possible defence against the charges. I do think 8 years is too long, for her children too. it sounds awful for all of them.

What's so bizarre about this case is a. it's extremely unusual but b. there's no evidence about what happened to the pregnancy. The only established facts seem to be that she was pregnant at one stage and that she ordered a drug to induce labour. She's been sentenced for what it is assumed she has done, rather than for a proven crime. I can't think of any comparable cases. Even that awful case where the parents killed their daughter it wasn't until the body was found that they were prosecuted.

Abandoning the baby, having it adopted, telling her husband - these would all have been preferable, indeed, but she clearly wasn't thinking logically, was she? It's desperately sad (and with her previous history, you'd hope she'd opt for sterilisation - but again, that requires a degree of logical thinking).

You can give up a baby here yank but not without involvement. You have to relinquish parental rights and ss like to be sure you understand this. Your baby stays in fostercare whilst this happens.

It is imo a better system than drop boxes, there is research that shows women can be forced to use these. also the baby is entitled to some information about their birth and biological family.

oh, and the cleft lip abortion thing was concocted by a ranty-anti-abortionist. Who dug around in the stats to try and find some dirt, found one case where there had been an abortion (which cannot have been for easily-corrected cleft lip and palate alone, doctors aren't stupid) and then made a huge song and dance about it, attempting to out the woman concerned and the doctors. I think she tried to have the doctors prosecuted. Appalling infringement of the woman's right to confidentiality. Whatever your views on abortion, no-one has the right to go digging around in your medical records.