Jailing a mother of three - WTF

[Capitalismwantsyou]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/woman-in-uk-jailed-for-28-months-over-taking-abortion-pills-after-legal-time-limit

But adoption IS better. Being putting into care IS better.

If it wasn’t, we’d euthanise children instead of putting them up for adoption or into care.

Sorry if this has already been post but for anyone in London (there may be local actions in other cities)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/time-to-act-tickets-646932551677

So the evidence is that women in the last 60 years are making good decisions about their pregnancies.

Yes, they are. Women can be trusted to make good abortion decisions. This one woman was an exception that happens single-digits per year at most, and if she'd been in Northern Ireland, she wouldn't have even been arrested because self-abortion is not a crime over there.

I trust women not to abuse late abortions, even if we remove the time limit.

I trust women.

This is true for absolutely every crime though, isn’t it?

Most people don’t commit murder, so should that be taken out of criminal law?

Most people don’t burgle, should we get Friday of those laws too?

Safeguarding policies and laws are in place for outliers in our society just like this.

I wasn't suggesting you are a liar.
I 100% believe you.

Have you tried relinquishing a baby in the UK? As a PP noted upthread, it is surprisingly difficult. The assumption from social care professionals seems to be that no woman would actually want to do this, therefore she must be mentally unwell, being coerced etc. Let alone how it would even be possible in the first lockdown, plus of course the exP she was back living with would have found out then, which she clearly went to extreme lengths to avoid.

Adoption or care is the least worst option for children who are already here and can't safely stay in their birth family. This very sad case is not equivalent to euthanasia of existing children.

Thanks IwantToRetire

I spotted something in the info for that march and went off to check it.

That thing I said was happening in the US, with women investigated for miscarriages? It's happening in the UK. To school girls. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/why-women-in-uk-face-criminal-charges-for-abortion_uk_62d5689ee4b0116f21be6fe1

If the price of protecting innocent women from unwarranted criminal investigation after miscarriage or stillbirth is a few women abusing abortion pills without punishment, then so be it. If believing that makes me the devil or a monster, then I'll wear those slurs like a badge of honour.

Investigated. For a year. During her GCSEs. After a stillbirth. She was a child FFS.

This baby was a few weeks away from being an existing child.

The assumption from social care professionals seems to be that no woman would actually want to do this, therefore she must be mentally unwell,

is this not the exact same assumption you’re making about this woman?

So, the public interest and who else gets hurt by criminalising self-abortion is important.

Is investigating a schoolgirl for a year after her genuine stillbirth in her interest or the public interest? Because I just found out (I live under a rock) that that happened in this country two years ago.

I think that it harms women and girls and is not in the public interest to have a woman who still-births (still-bears?) or miscarries investigated as a criminal suspect. It harms women's and girls' faith in their health care teams if they worry that the HCPs might make a police report. It harms women's health if the woman doesn't go for miscarriage or still-birth care because she fears arrest. It harms women's mental health to be accused of killing the baby that they very likely wanted. And it puts women at risk of wrongful conviction because how do you prove that it wasn't an illegal abortion?

I am of the view that the State's putative interest in the life of the baby is less important than protecting women and girls from the State's unfounded accusations of criminality. If some women abuse that, that's on them.

I think potential crimes should be investigated, yes.

Again, many people are suspected of crimes and it turns out they were innocent.

Should we therefore stop investing all crimes?

If you want to bring USA type abortion wars to the UK where 2 fanatical sides battle for only their absolute position either way: Do it.

But I don't think it's likely to have good outcomes for UK women.

Excellent point.

If you make women choose between allowing abortions right up until full gestation and no abortions at all, you’re unwittingly going to lose a lot of support for the pro-choice stance.

What I'm saying is, it is not as easy as some posters may think, to just have the baby and give it up for adoption. And this woman was clearly extremely keen that the people around her not know she was pregnant, which made having the baby and giving it up seem impossible to her.

I agree I do assume this woman wasn't thinking straight, for whatever reason or combination of reasons. I just don't think a woman who had had 3 babies previously would think abortion pills at 34 weeks pregnant was a solution which would a) work and b) be possible to keep secret, if she was capable at the time of clear decision-making.

I wonder how she was planning to dispose of the body of the baby after she had induced preterm labour, if she wanted to keep it secret she would have needed a plan for this. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

As early as possible as late as necessary, there's your line.

Self-abortion should not be a crime.

The public interest in criminalising theft is people not stealing things that belong to someone else.

Can the State really claim that the public interest is served by preventing self-abortion?

We used to criminalise suicide. We stopped because we recognised that it wasn't in the public interest and was counterproductive. It stopped people who were injured after making the attempt from getting treatment. It stopped survivors from disclosing the attempt to counsellors.

Self-abortion looks just like a miscarriage or still-birth. So going to get help for a genuine medical problem could get a woman reported to the police. That's not OK.

I suspect that she thought that the pills would give "really heavy period" type discharge that would chew threw a lot of sanitary towels. It sounds really unlikely, but then I've met women who couldn't find the cervix on a diagram.

I absolutely agree with this and fear that this is exactly what's going to happen if both sides don't stay on the current middle ground.

Agreeing with abortion up until birth (outside of medical reasons) is as much an extreme view as allowing no abortion at all. I think more people would agree to lower the time limits than extend them if it came down to it.

I think the UK has it about right and it shouldn't be touched at all.

Nearly all relinquished children spend some time in the care system, this is more likely if the child has additional needs which this pregnancy was at risk of due to the previous child's difficulties and the woman's age. Adoption is not a panacea and not for the faint hearted.

You can decriminalise self-abortion whilst not changing the regulations that doctors work under. Women wouldn't be able to turn up at 32 weeks LMP demanding an abortion because the doctor would refuse on the grounds that he's not allowed to do that. Were she to take matters into her own hands, she would not be arrested.

This would be inline with the views stated by several posters that the woman needs mental health support, not jail. It allows for the "we shouldn't enable that" and "she shouldn't be jailed for it" views to co-exist.

Northern Ireland has decriminalised self-abortion and has fully on-demand doctor-assisted abortion but the time limit is only twelve weeks. It's crazy that NI, home of the DUP, has more liberal abortion laws than the rest of the UK. The rest of the UK's sentencing, up to life, is the most severe in Europe.

I wonder if people would be so forgiving of this woman if she'd punched herself to induce an abortion. No jail time then? Full autonomy and right to do as she pleases?

Since, a fetus is not a person so morals can be tossed aside, after all.

If a woman punches herself, throws herself down the stairs, sits in baths so hot that they scald her, takes pennyroyal or any other dangerous herbal preparation, or in any other way self-harms to try to self-abort, she needs a therapist not a prison cell.

That you mention self-punching at all tells me that you know full well what desperate measures women will resort to when a safe legal abortion isn't available. You show a stunning lack of compassion for any and all women facing unwanted pregnancy.

Punching is a particularly aggressive action. Is that acceptable as a form of abortion?

It seems no matter what a woman does, mental health and desperation is used to mitigate anything. It's the trump card to any argument.

Crazy how people can dehumanise a nearly fully baked fetus, it really is.

I suspect most people would realise how desperate she felt to punch herself in her stomach hard enough to cause harm to the feotus. Its not exactly something someone of sound mind does.

Yes, I'm sure nobody of sound mind kills their born children either. No sentence needed.