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 am pro-choice. I accept that there must be a legal framework that allows later terminations to take place however much that idea horrifies me. However that is NOT what this case is about. From what I understand, this woman appears to have induced labour - certainly she has given birth as a pregnancy was documented and that has to have ended in some way. Sadly I think it's more than likely that she ended the life of the baby after it was born.

This isn't a case about a choice to abort a pregnancy. It's about a crime.

In my eyes its murder not abortion!!!
Surely after the baby becomes viable, it is illegal to abort unless there are extreme circumstances?
I don't disagree with abortion for the right reasons, as a woman should be allowed a right to choose but this wasn't abortion, it was premeditated murder.

I'm really disturbed by this harsh sentencing.

I personally believe that you should have autonomy over your own body. Even if you are pregnant. If you no longer want a baby growing in your body, and swallow a drug to end it, then that is your business. I'm not saying it's pleasant, or that many women want this, but I do not think it is my place to demand other women finish their unwanted pregnancies. It is not my body, so not my choice.

Unfortunately pregnant women do not have autonomy; society tells them what they may or may not do with their bodies. I think this is wrong.

I still can't get my head round the fact that she's been sent to prison for a theoretical crime, with no actual proof that any crime occurred, just supposition. I know she pleaded guilty but if she hadn't, what would have happened? There's no actual proof that she didn't miscarry, is there?

The fact that she did plead guilty... I wonder why. She refuses to explain what happened - maybe pleading guilty is the only way she could sustain that, as pleading not guilty would require an explanation (it shoudln't, it should be for the prosecution to make their case, but clearly hard to sustain a plea of not guilty in this case without saying what on earth did happen).

Legal abortion practiced by an appropriate person is a choice. Illegal abortion practiced by operators or by the women themselves is not a choice and for good reason. Botched abortion kills women. It is the state's responsibility to protect women from the dangers of that and that is achieved by defining a legal framework in which abortion may take place and by criminalising anything outside that.
I rather doubt that this case would ever have been bought on these grounds if Sarah Catt had led police to the baby's body so the cause of death could better be established. I suspect that it is her secrecy on that point which has led to the worst construction being placed on her actions.
I would say as well that having the right to choose does not allow us to abidicate responsibility for our actions. It must have been awful for her to find she was passed the cut off date for an abortion in her circumstances. However at that point she had a responsibility to look at the legal choices open to her which included offering the baby for adoption at birth. Inducing labour herself and then disposing of the baby by whatever means she chose was never a 'choice' that she should have thought about making. It's a crime to prevent the proper burial of a body too. Failure to report a birth is also a crime I believe.

She has admitted to taking illegal drugs to induce an abortion, and then failed to declare delivering a still born baby and illegally disposed of the body. How is that not a crime? Where has the baby gone if she has not done these things? She had a scan at 30+ weeks, so she did not miscarry, she had a still birth, so she is presumably legally obliged to seek medical help and report the death.

I don't believe it was a stillbirth. Why won't she reveal where the body is?

I just wanted to say that initially I also felt that 8 years was quite a harsh sentence for doing something which is legally allowed in this country (albeit if only a scan and tests prove the baby is less than perfect & carried out by the medical profession) but having read this thread it seems as if this is more about possible murder of a baby. She would have been assessed by competent psychiatrists and clearly is not mentally ill. I speak as someone with a mentally ill sister who could possibly have killed my nephew in the early weeks of his life through her deteriorating mental health. Please don't give mentally ill people a bad name.

MrsDeVere, I do see what you're saying. And on these issues, half the time I really feel like I'm arguing with myself! dd was born at 28 weeks, one of the other babies in the NICU was born at 23 weeks 6 days and they were all most certainly little people. And would have been, regardless of what disability they had.

Blackberry - I think we have to surmise that the fate of the baby has been concealed because either she can't face what happened, she can't remember (possible given massive stress - though I doubt it myself) or because it would reveal a lot more. The father of the baby and her behaviour to the baby would all be revealed and 8 years may seem like a long time but she won't serve anyway near that. She would serve a lot longer for more serious crimes.

chip it is a complex issue and I find it confusing. I do not think I would terminate for any reason but fortunately I have not been in that position.
I am prochoice but find the idea of late terminations upsetting in the extreme.

Think it comes down to this - I WISH no woman ever had to have a termination at any stage in her pregnancy. I WISH that no woman ever felt the need to make that decision.

But they always have and they always will and I want them to have terminations safely and without stigma.

I think the the case in the OP is confused by the use of the term 'abortion' which is a medical term. It upsets women who lose wanted pregnancies because their losses are referred to as such. This woman appears to have induced labour and the baby died or was killed.

As I understand it, she used labour inducing drugs rather than toxic ones. Its a disturbing case for so many reasons.

have to say I find the whole case odd.
so you can have a legal abortion up to birth in some cases . disability/
but do a home one up to birth, no disability and you go to prison.
weird.

well it's illegal to do your own abortion, yes

And in this case birth concealment too and possible murder.

"I still can't get my head round the fact that she's been sent to prison for a theoretical crime"

??? She committed an actual crime, which she confessed to.

"The defendant pleaded guilty in July to administering a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.

She told a psychiatrist she had taken the drug while her husband was away and delivered the baby boy by herself at home."

That carries a potential life sentence.

If you plead guilty to a serious crime, then there's nothing more to say, and certainly nothing theoretical about it....

Of course she was guilty in any case of acquiring the drug, a crime in itself, but she went on to confess to taking it, so it's cut and dried really.

I think the whole case is very disturbing, did the husband not know she was pregnant then?

Of course its murder, and after 26 weeks imo the mothers right to choose does not over ride the babies right to life

'I think she just didn't want her husband to find out she was having an affair.'

But really how many people could actually bring themselves to take the option she did even in that situation? Something is horribly wrong. It's also highly unusual to not notice you're pregnant until 29 weeks, although I know it does happen.

Somthing must be wring with the woman in question here.

But to compare what this woman did to someone having a late termination to a woman having to make an incredibly painful decision to have a late abortion due to legitimate and legal reasons is very insensitive. She did it so her husband would not find out about her affair. Not because she found out the devastating news that her baby had SEVERE abnormalities or her health was in SEVERE danger. I am pro choice and women do have rights over their bodies, but murdering your children and hiding their bodies is not the same. Even for the small minority of terminations that happen over 24 weeks, I doubt hardly any have happened at full term like this.

What bothers me the most is that the headline refers to a 38 week abortion but the drugs she took were to induce labour. IMO This is not the same thing at all.

Surely at 38 weeks there's every chance that the baby would be born live? Only she can know what lengths she would have, or did go to to avoid her pregnancy being discovered.

I agree that there is likely more to the story but on this alone I think she certainly deserves a prison sentence.

I agree.
This doesn't sound like an abortion to me. I am confused to why it keeps being referred to as such.
She induced labour.

When a woman has a late termination she isnt given labour inducing drugs is she? surely that would been she gives birth.

Think it's referred to abortion because of the intention to kill element

She never intended a live baby as an outcome. With no body for pm there is no murder to convict her of

i agree its not an abortion, unless she also had drugs to kill the baby before it was born, they say she used drugs to induce miscarriage/

a woman given a late termination is either given an injection that stops the babies heart and then labour is induced or in some circumstances the baby is born alive and then dies shortly after birth (some women opt for this so they can hold their baby as it dies if it has a life limiting condition such as encaphaly (sp) infact there was a case recently on fb where a couple did this)

and imo late term abortion is relevant in that had it been available as an option legally for this woman, perhaps that is what she would have done, rather than give birth alone and keep it a secret.

and yes there is no body and so we have no idea of knowing and perhaps the press are just using the terms that seem to 'fit' in the same way that they often refer annoyingly to stillbirth as miscarriage. annoying and not the right terminology but it is perhaps easier for people to understand? i mean understand the terminology rather than what they woman has done as i dont and cant understand it.

as mrsdevere said its not a choice i have had to make and i am grateful not to have been in that position but i would much rather than women are able to make a choice in these situations.

I agree that women should have choices, but not in the case of full term pregnancies. It's such a slippery slope to me. If she'd given birth in a hospital at 37 weeks and then smothered the baby later that night she'd be convicted of murder.

There are people (not many, thankfully) arguing that infants are not "persons" and their parents should be able to "terminate" them if they choose. Where does it end? My five year old cannot really "live alone", should I have the right to terminate him?

Woking, yes, I know, but without a guilty plea, what evidence was there? Evidence that she was pregnant at X date, evidence that she bought a drug to induce labour and the negative evidence that no birth has been registered.

As for psychiatrists, I wonder how far she co-operated with them given she's refusing to tell anyone what happened?

Appalling case