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

i dont think its a decision any woman would take lightly and you cant then take away someones reproductive rights, thank god! peoples circumstances change, a woman may have various reasons for terminating a pregnancy at anybstage and they may well not be applicable or relevant in another pregnancy.

i am asduming tamisara you wouldnt apply that same 'rule' to someone who had a late term abortion for nedical reasons such as the baby having disabilities? again making a judhement about the value of that babies life.

This case is utterly bizarre. I'm guessing there is an awful lot of back story which is not reported. I hope anything not being reported is being kept secret to protect vulnerable people involved :( But from these facts I don't think prison was the right decision. I hope this woman and her other dc are given the support which I'm sure they need.

5madthings look at this persons history ? Dies it not show a disregard for human life?

She doesn't need support.... She isn't falling apart, whining or wailing!

She is cold. Showed no emotion during court appearances and has shown no remorse. Cold. Kind of like Myra Hindley/Rose west.

i never made a judgement on the woman im this case other than to say i wondered what was going on in her lufe for her to feel this was her only choice.

do i think there are evil people in tjis world? yes probably. do i think tjis woman.is evil? well.i dont know enough to make that judgement.

i do think that late term abortion is not something most women would take lightly and perhaps if it was available she wouldnt have gone to these extremes.

and whilst we allow abortion of disabled babies and not nt babies we are making a judgement on disabled people and their worth, that is wrong imo.

The only cases i have heard of where late abortions have occured have been where the fetus would not survive outside the womb, such as anencephaly, where basically the brain has not developed properly if at all, so the baby usually dies shortly after birth. In this case the parents would be offered the choice of the baby dying whilst in the womb, or delivering then baby dies. Horrid either way, but a choice can be offered.

Usually the screening programme will identify most abnormalities early enough so that any termination can occur within 24 weeks, which is horrible to go through all the same, but at least parents have a choice, and so they should. So it is very rare that this situation of discovering defects late on happens anyway.

But this women killed/aborted what was more than likely a healthy baby. It is far worse IMO.

Tami, this is really a very emotive topic for us, isn't it? I am pro-choice but find it so, so hard that on the one hand people like you and I lost our babies at around this stage through no fault of our own, and yet someone else could just say "I really don't want this baby" and kill a totally viable baby.

And I have to wonder what kind of mental state she was in that this seemed like the best option. Surely women who are mentally well don't do things like this?

5madthings you are so right on the disability discrimination.

I was not on about disabilities per say in regards to term abortion.
I meant term abortion for severe disabilities which are unable to be lived with and only spotted at that late stage.
I do not see why a baby that is capable of human life should be aborted at term as there is no reason for it utter than pure selfishness.

Late term abortions are usually performed after fetocide. The fetus has the heart stopped to avoid the situation of it being born alive and prompting treatment or ignoring.

There are some scenarios (not cleft palate) where the fetus will suffer if born. For all the parents who have been in this heart breaking scenarion I hope this thread does not cause them distress.

You would assume wrong then 5madthings. There is never a reason for such a late abortion. I couldn't give a shit what is going on in the woman's life. If the child is not able to live with the woman, for whatever reason, then she could give the baby up for abortion. A woman undergoing a late abortion would have to give birth - why not have the baby alive, and let someone who wants it look after it?

Do you realise how offensive your comments are to women who have had stillborn children? You are basically saying that their children were not 'real' children, as they were only in the woman's womb. At what stage do you consider an unborn child to have rights? What about if a woman decides that it's too much hassle getting up in the night to tend a newborn - would it be OK to kill the baby? Of course not, but why is the baby any more special than an unborn child?

What you have said is highly offensive to women whose beloved children were stillborn - basically their children weren't 'real' as they didn't take a breath?

Abortion us nothing to do with this case. All she did was induce labour..... Then what?

www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2012/09/17/eight-year-sentence-for-woman-who-arranged-her-own-miscarriage/

IN a sense it doesn't make any difference whether a person is called mentally unwell, or is 'just evil' - they still need to be treated in a way that will protect society from the things they are capable of.

I don't know enough to judge but I'd say that this person is very damaged, has been damaged in some way [probably from an early age, to be capable of the detachment and callousness required to perform such an action.

Terrible behaviour can go alongside mental illness, as a result of damage to someone's moral and emotional balance.

It's what you do about it - punishment isn't such a priority imo as making sure she is never allowed to cause this sort of horrible thing again.

Sorry posted too soon. Above link is a bit more in depth in this case

She only serves 4 years, then she is out on license

With her history I am surprised she is in prion, shouldn't she be somewhere better for helping her with her mental health?

do any Scottish people know, if this had happened in Scotland, would it be any different as have vague recollection that Scottish law is different?

Blackberry - was that directed to me? I think she does need support. I'm generally against prison because I don't believe that locking people up is a good long term plan for resolving problems and I don't think it can effectively be used as punishment and I wouldn't want it to be. I don't think it is the government's job to punish people and I don't think punishment is something we should build in to society. I think she almost certainly does need support because if she was doing ok then this wouldn't have happened. I struggle to believe that people are innately evil so I assume that the situation was causative or at least a contributory factor in her decision. I wonder if her ability to make logical decisions was somehow reduced perhaps through stress / fear or some kind of mental illness, although the reports don't seem to say that.

I agree that this is a tragic case and that it is shocking, but I with Booki (but she said it better) that it's more shocking and tragic that parliament sat down and decided to ban abortion after a certain deadline but decided that wouldn't count for disabled dc.

I do feel it is most definitely discriminatory to people with SN's. But there are SN's and SN's. My cousin kept her baby with severe SN's. He is a total joy, the smiliest, loveliest little soul.
But he requires 24 hour care, most of it which is provided by his Mum. She is a single Mum now and gets very little respite. He spent the first three years of his life in hospital. Now, I know she doesn't regret having him, everyone in the family adores him and he is the light of her life but I do think there should be a choice for the parents as to whether they personally would want that life for themselves and their dc. It has cost her a lot.

"There is never a reason for such a late abortion. I couldn't give a shit what is going on in the woman's life. If the child is not able to live with the woman, for whatever reason, then she could give the baby up for adoption" I disagree.

Really dueling so when do you think a baby has rights then?

chipmonkey i doubt very much she would wish him not there though.

It wasn't an abortion..... She induced labour to fit in with a time she would be alone

She didn't know the baby would be stillborn did she? ( if the baby was)

So what was her plan? To give birth secretly..... Then what was next on her plan? She must have assumed, as we all do, that she would give birth to a live child.

Daily Mail website is now reporting she did it because of fears the child was her lover of 7 years She's also apparently said the baby was stillborn but will not reveal the location.

RIP Little one x