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

The state of the evidence isn't relevant given that she pleaded guilty.

Well she was definitely pregnant. So SOMETHING has happened to the baby. Either she killed or aborted it or she concealed the birth and then gave it away.

As she has confessed to an illegal abortion, there's nothing more to investigate really.

It's not like some nutter walking in and confessing to a random murder, here's she's committed one or more crimes, even without her confession, and she chose to confess to illegal abortion.

Why would she have taken the drugs only to induce labour though? She googled how to have a late abortion! That was her intention and that was what happened. The drugs were sold as being able to kill the fetus. This would in turn induce labour. Either the baby died inside her as she intended, or the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. Horrible either way.

Yes, I know she pleaded guilty to buying the drug. Not to killing the baby - she claims he or she was stillborn. Extraordinary that there are so few actual facts - just that she was pregnant and admits buying a medicine to induce labour.

The baby was still born as a result of taking the drugs that she admits she took intending to kill the baby. And evidence exists on a computer that she bought them for this purpose, google questions etc. And anyway where is the body! There is no doubt a crime took place, by her own admission even.

Temper, we don't know the baby was stillborn - that's just what the woman says. That's what's so bizarre about this case, there are so few actual facts.

No she pleaded guilty to procuring a miscarriage. Buying the drug is a less serious offence, but she didn't plead guilty to that.

yes exactly we dont know what happened to the baby, she could have sold it or given it the father (if the father was not her husband) theoretically the baby could be alive and well somewhere.

i do wonder if she has pleaded guilty as that seems the easier option rather than uncovering the truth? there is much more to this case than meets the eye i think.

its horrible for all concerned but her husband is standing by her apparently? and i feel for her two other children having this in all the newspapers, can you imagine what they are going to face at school :(

Ah, I've looked at the Beeb story now, Mail one read as if she'd pleaded guilty to buying the drug.

Why would pleading guilt be easier than admitting to a live baby?

Because she could have sold it, Pumpster. I doubt she did, though, I'm more inclined to think she delivered it early and killed or abandoned it to die.

i am not sure, maybe the baby/child is happily settled with people it thinks are its parents, if she admitted it was alive, they woudl want to know where it was and there would still be investigations, if she ahd 'sold' it i am guessing that is still a crime? child trafficking? and could lead to repurcussions for her and the people who have the baby?

the whole thing is awful, just musing on possibilities as i dont think it is as clear cut as its being made out to be by the papers.

and fundamentally i do believe women should have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies so it would have been better that she could have had a legal abortion, even tho that is unpalatable to me personally.

the current system wherby a disabled baby is somehow 'disposable' and a nt baby is not really is not a fair system and is disablist. but thats a whole other debate!

It is awful. I can't agree with late abortions but I don't think that is what this is all about.

I think personally she is not admitting where the body is as there may be evidence that the baby was not born stillborn and she would be charged with murder and get an even longer sentence. anyway I am signing off now as I an going to bed and if I think about this anymore I'll have horrible dreams.

yes if they find the body there would be a postmortum and that could show that she murdered the baby.

it is awful.

i dont like the idea of late term abortion, its not something i think i could do and am very grateful never to ahve been in that postion, but i think its wrong that its ok for some babies and not for others, its wrong that we are making a judgement on the value of a disabled childs life.

and its not about late abortion but if late abortion had been availalbe to this woman legally, then perhaps that would have been a choice for her? which has to be better than what she has done, for herself and for her family.

joona they DO allow abortions after 24wks, but only in the case of life threatening complications for the mother or if the baby has serious disability or a disability that is life limiting/compromising. i am not sure on the technically wording of the law.

there was proof. She had a scan at 30 weeks and suspicion was raised when she did not register the babys birth weeks later.

the police seized her computer and found records of the abortion drugs. she had also concealed another pregnancy, had another termination and had a child adopted. the fact that she concealed her last pregnancy before this one is a worry and shows what she was capable of - she was also having an affair that had gone on 7 years.

full story here

If it was done innocently and the baby was alive and well, she wouldn't be so tight lipped...there is obviously more to this story than we are being led to believe. She deserves a lot more than eight years, IMO. And perhaps getting sterilised might not go a miss.

'done innocently'? I don't see how that could apply. She was going to give birth naturally in a very short time. Surely the only reason not to wait for that to occur was that she wanted/needed to get rid of the baby (giving it away, killing it/whatever.

wrong choice of wording on my part, sorry. I meant that she may have had intentions of inducing the labour to give the baby away without killing him/her, rather than the alternative. But it seems suspect that she's done it before the due date, surely it would have made sense to wait to give birth naturally?

There is a thread on MN ( started before this hit the news ) where some posters state that a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy at any point, right up to term, for whatever reason she chooses.

I'm amazed / disgusted that attitudes like that are allowed to stand.

The drugs she has confessed to using are to induce labour, not to kill the baby.

She believed that her lover may well be the baby's father. Her husband was away when she delivered the baby.

Seems to me that she decided to induce the birth at that particular point in the pregnancy, to ensure that the baby was delivered whilst her husband was away.

She says that the baby was stillborn. That may well be true, but it does seem very convienient for her that this was the case. After all, she wanted to conceal the fact that the baby ever existed from those around her, and the only way she was able to do that was by giving birth alone and selling the baby/abandoning the baby/or burying the baby if it was dead (however the death occured).

I hope that she is telling the truth about the stillbirth, or that she has handed the baby over to loving parents.

"The court heard Catt had failed to arrange an abortion before the legal limit of 24 weeks, and so scoured the internet with search terms such as "where can I get an illegal abortion?" and "inducing an abortion at 30 weeks". Mr Justice Cooke told her that her crime, which saw the drugs flown from Mumbai and delivered to her home at Sherburn-in-Elmet, ranked between manslaughter and murder on the criminal scale."

The Guardian