Judge in late abortion case linked to conservative Christian charity

[HoleyGhost]

" A judge who criticised UK abortion policies while sentencing a woman to eight years in prison for performing her own abortion at a late stage in her pregnancy is one of at least five members of the judiciary with links to a Christian charity which has campaigned for more conservative abortion laws."


Thought this deserved a thread of its own.

[mrsfritch]

I am also pro choice up to the point when the baby can survive, and I believe that the judgement may have been clouded by the judges personal beliefs and in any case where judgement is clouded by religious beliefs they should be re tried in the eyes of the law not the eyes of god.

[Extrospektiv]

She HAS been tried in the eyes of the law. She has been punished by the law. 8 years' imprisonment is not God's sentence. It is a sentence under the Offences against the Person Act for a serious violation.

She will be tried in the eyes of God after she dies, like all of us will.

The fact that I hate certain parts of UK law and cultural norms (but will not move, in case anyone suggests that, as the reasons to stay here outweigh any reasons to move to a more moral society) is irrelevant. The judge obviously does not hate our legal system as much as I do, as he has worked within it for a long time; he would not have kept his job as a judge without doing so. Whatever my personal feelings I can still tell that such law has been followed in the case at issue. So Catt has zero grounds of appeal.

[mrsfritch]

You cannot guarentee his judgement was not clouded and if they can't find the body how can they sentence fairly when they don't know if the baby died before birth or after, surely sentencing would be different if she has infact killed the baby shortly after birth wich is highly possible at 39 weeks.

[Extrospektiv]

Because in the eyes of the law as I have previously explained on this thread, a judge cannot sentence for the more serious of two crimes if they can only prove the less serious one. There is no proof that infanticide or murder* has been committed so she is being charged with what can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Any personal belief, atheists' ones included, could cloud a judge's judgement. We would have to have robots determine sentences to avoid this. I trust that the judge has done his job and not sentenced due to prejudice, as there is not enough reason for me to believe he is guilty of this.

*by God's definition she is a murderer, as are all Bpas and MSI doctors, but this is not relevant to sentencing- I just include it to make it clear that the government will not control my thinking.

[runningforme]

I am totally disgusted by those that are actually defending this woman's 'right' to murder her viable baby. You are more angry at the notion that the judge's sentence was clouded by his beliefs that you fail to realise that your own staunch pro choice beliefs cloud your own eyes, preventing you from admitting that what this woman did was heinous. You can bet that poor baby felt pain when it was killed so mercilessly by the very mother whose smell, voice and heartbeat had moments before sustained it. She premeditated it's murder and she refuses to say where it is buried. That isn't pro choice. It's murder plain and simple.

[mellen]

The CPS presumably felt that they didnt have enough evidence to prove any charges beyond what she was tried for. She wasnt charged with murder, or infanticide (as that is defined as 'suffering from an imbalance of mind due to the effects of childbirth or lactation- would that technically apply of the action was planned prior to either?).

[pumpkinsweetie]

Well said runningforme! The judge didn't allow his beliefs to cloud his judgment as i think 8 years based on the evidence and law sounds about right.
Imo 8 years is not enough for what she did. This was not ABORTION, it was worse This was a newborn, fullterm, probable healthy baby boy and even if she didn't kill him the drugs she took may have led to his death.
The woman is a disgrace, disgarding all her babies when she feels like it.
She needs to be sterilised

[DuelingFanjo]

Look, there is no god and it's totally stupid to start throwing 'in the eyes of god. Statements around when dealing with the law. 8 years seems a lot to me (though the link says 12?) as this woman seems to have some major issues which the judge didn't explore. I hope she gets whatever help she needs and I hope her two children are ok.

[Rowanhart]

Extrospective, your behaviour is the most UnChristian I've seen on this thread.

If you believe in judgement day then I'd work very hard on yourself and your behaviour.

Because how you are behaving is the opposite of what Jesus preached.

[Hopeforever]

Edam, can I give MN a much easier version of
Matthew 7:3-5 (TNIV)
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else?s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? [4] How can you say, ?Let me take the speck out of your eye,? when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? [5] You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person?s eye

It is for this very reason I think it's a great thing that this judge tries to live and work by his faith.

If he wants to Judge by Christian values (that's me putting words in his mouth as the Guardian article just tells us he is part of the group where one person has said this) then he will be more likely to be more understanding that we all fail and have to look at our own failings everyday and only judge when we have a right to (which he has been given the huge task of by the government)

The law may say that it makes no difference how many weeks gestation a woman is when she has an illegal abortion, but we on MN know full well that there is a difference between a foetus that dies at 8 weeks and one that is 38 weeks. When you listen to the stories mothers tell of giving birth to their still born babies it is different to those who have a MC in the first trimester.

Both are distressing and horrible, But there is a difference

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Duelling the sentence was 12 years but reduced by one third to 8 for a guilty plea.

[edam]

Hope - thanks; I'm a writer so I do love the King James Bible but indeed it may be easier for people to get the language of later versions.

Trying to live as a Christian may be a great thing in theory but sadly many Christians don't live up to the teachings of Jesus. I'm an agnostic myself but brought up CofE and went to church schools (and took religious studies O-level which was essentially Eng Lit on the Gospels so I analyzed them in some detail, and have maintained an interest in what, as far as we know given they were written by other people, Jesus actually said and did).

Look at all those Christians who get so worked up by Leviticus, but cheerfully ignore all the other prohibitions in the Old Testament, as well as what Christ said about he'd come with a new message and we shouldn't live by the Old Testament. They ignore all the stuff about the Pharisees too and appear to model themselves on people Christ criticized.

Funny thing that religious Jews, who do try to live by the Old Testament, are generally far less bossy about other (non-Jewish) people than some Christians. Maybe that's to do with being the Chosen Ones and not worrying about the un-Chosen, I dunno. Will have to ask my Jewish friends.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Religion aside, what this woman did was horrific. Anyone should see that

[edam]

Btw, human beings are fallible and all that, so it's unfair to expect Christians to be perfect. Would just be nice if the more vehement ones tried to pay attention to what Jesus actually said rather than trying to use their beliefs to oppress other people.

[edam]

No-one's doubting that, pumpkin. What we are debating is whether the sentence was just.

[UnityMot]

To clarify matters here, if Catt has grounds for appeal against the sentence the it lies primarily in Mr Justice Cooke's rejection of the sentence in the Maisha Mohammed case as a sentencing precedent on the grounds he saw the two cases as not being comparable.

On the facts of both cases, this assertion seems rather dubious as these cases appear to differ in only two material respects.

One is that Catt is relatively well educated, while Mohammed was both illiterate and innumerate, however, neither appears to have had a psychiatric disorder at the time of the offence and there is nothing to suggest that Mohammed's lack of basic skills is due to anything other than a lack of basic education - she is a Somali migrant. Indeed, in the Mohammed case, the jury was told that she had already had a previous legal abortion before she underwent the backstreet abortion for which she was convicted and so cannot reasonably be considered to be ignorant of either UK abortion law or the process by which an abortion can be obtained legally. This being the case, one cannot justify the harsher sentence awarded to Catt on this basis, unless one take the view that Mohammed was dealt with altogether too leniently.

The other material difference is the gestational age of the foetus at the point of termination. However, here, if we look at survival rate we find that the difference in neonatal survival rates between a neonate born at 30 weeks gestation (95%+) and one born at full term, which is 39-40 weeks (97-98%), is only a matter of 2-3%. That being the case, its not clear that one can reasonably take the difference in viability as justification for such a wide disparity in sentencing.

If she appeals, Catt might also make something of of Cooke's comments in paragraph 7, where he peremptorily dismisses any need for a report from a psychologist, which suggests that the defence may have asked for a second opinion on Catt's mental state when the court-appointed psychiatrist's report came up negative for any psychiatric disorders. Coupled with the fact that Cooke made his personal biases in regards to abortion, generally, explicit in his remarks, Catt may wish to contest that aspect of his ruling.

AS for Cooke's - and extro's - assertion that abortion law is wrongly construed, this is flat out wrong for reasons I deal with here -

www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2011/12/14/are-98-of-uk-abortions-illegal/

[edam]

Thanks Unity, interesting post.

[domesticgodless]

I am concerned and surprised by this sentence. Under the UK laws on infanticide, if this woman had given birth to the baby alive and then killed it at birth, her offence would have been limited to manslaughter and only in very rare cases would she have been imprisoned for longer than 12 months. Most women who commit infanticide are given psychiatric treatment rather than a prison sentence under the sensible assumption that a woman who kills her own child is likely to be suffering extreme emotional or mental disturbance or difficulty.

I am surprised at posters who can so confidently conclude that the woman involved was 'cold and calculating' in her actions. You can carry out a plan while desperate and deeply depressed. Indeed this is what a number of infanticidal women do every year - eg planning to kill themselves and their child together. Often this is an irrational and extreme reaction to dreadful circumstances such as poverty, violence and being in a perceived trap from which there is no way out. You could call that mental illness, or desperation, or insanity caused by desperation.

In the case of this woman we don't know what the circumstances were.

I'm very surprised by the sentencing discrepancy here as compared to infanticide cases and I think that this woman has been sentenced for longer precisely because her baby was unborn at the time. The judge is making a statement about the value of the unborn fetus. Whatever one thinks of that
(I personally believe that the death of a 39 week old fetus is a tragic waste of life, although I am pro-choice) there is no justification for this massive legal discrepancy. I hope that the appeal deals with these issues or the law on late abortion and infanticide is going to be a great big confused mess.

[mellen]

There is a lot that we don't know about this case that may have acted to mitigate the situation precisely because Catt has declined to provide that information, or to utilise those arguments. We don't know why she has done so, but presumably she has her reasons.

[runningforme]

Calling a 39 week's gestation baby a 'fetus' makes it more palatable to those who trump the rights of the mother over that of the unborn child. My ds was born at 37 weeks and needed no help or medical care whatsoever. He was most definitely a baby, and my rights were no greater than his.

[domesticgodless]

Running, I make no claims as to whether your baby is/was a baby to you; the fact however is that until a baby is born alive in the UK it is not LEGALLY a bay; it is a fetus. Sorry but feelings do not change the law.

[domesticgodless]

baby not bay!!

[domesticgodless]

And Running you should be aware that abortion is indeed illegal after 24 weeks, unless for disability and under medical advice. That does not mean however that the law treats all fetuses over 24 weeks in the same way as live-born babies.

I presume pro-life posters on here would also agree with the idea of whacking great sentences for women who commit infanticide. Those women are generally highly disturbed and under intense pressures eg from poverty and violence. In what sense does a long prison sentence help this situation? The woman will not be rehabilitated, simply punished for a vast amount of state money. But the punitive approach seems to be a sort of addiction for many these days.

[SESthebrave]

Personally I am appalled at what this woman did. Particularly if motivated by the fact she was worried about her affair being discovered. I find the topic of abortion very hard and am thankful I've never been in the situation of having to make such a decision.

However, I'm really not sure what this sentence actually achieves? I very much doubt this woman would be in this situation again and it's such a unique crime that I can't see it bring a deterrent. I would rather see a short sentence combined with some sort of supervised community work, such as a volunteer at a care home or charity.

[mellen]

She will be on licence for the last 4 years of the 8, so that should give her a degree of supervision and support.