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

So you think a woman for example should be able to decide at 39 weeks to abort a healthy pregnancy? Why? Why not induce labour/c-section and put baby up for adoption? At 39 weeks the mother would have to either labour or have surgery anyway to get it out?

Often the allowing after 24 weeks in cases of disability is because anatomy scan is at 20 weeks, then any issues picked up may take time to investigate. Referals need to be made. I can't imagine in practice that abortions happen much later very often.

I have a similar perspective- although im very pro choice, when it past 30 weeks and could definitely survive,

Yes.

I'd assume she'd have her own extremely good reasons for whatever choices she makes at 39 weeks and it's none of my business.

Women are oppressed by their reproductive biology. But they can also be shitty, dishonest people. I’m pro choice. But I don’t believe that human life doesn’t matter until it exits the womb. The hard thing is that it does. That’s why society has to try and work out some sort of balance. Killing a healthy 32-34 week old baby because you fucked around is not okay. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable feminist position.

I agree. I can't stand this narrative on MN that all women are perfect and wonderful people. They aren't, there are a lot of shitty women in the world, who do awful things, and I'm damned if I'm going to stand up for them simply because they are women! If women are so concerned with thei reproductive biology then some of them should take more care not conceive in the first place. I realise there are contraception failures, but not in most cases. Many women think they can do what they like, and if it results in a baby, oh well, let's just get rid of it. Appalling attitude.

This is really sad.
I agree that although I'm pro choice, post 30 weeks there could be a viable healthy baby. At this stage if someone doesn't want to or their mental health won't allow them to continue the pregnancy (or they had a natural stillbirth) they would still have to either give birth to or have a c section to remove the pregnancy. At this stage, unless it is medically necessary to protect the mother, I think there should be the option of removing the baby via early induction or c section and then giving the baby up for adoption immediately.
In this case though, I don't see the sentence benefiting anyone and think a house arrest would have been more appropriate

A dangerous assumption.

Lots of parents harm their children. Some of them even think they are in the right and justified in their parenting decisions. Some of them dont even have that justification and only think of their own needs.

We rightly have choice in this country around abortion that usually meets the needs of mother and the unborn and later past the legal limit for medical reasons and thats how it should be. But not a blanket 'I can do anything with this being inside me because I want to and shouldnt be questioned'

I do believe that pregnant women should have total power and control over their body including a being inside them.

And that's even if they make different choices to me, make bad choices, do things I disagree with etc etc.

But at 39 weeks the baby could be removed immediately so no longer pregnant without killing it.

regardless of where I stand on abortions and women's right to do what you want to your own body I can see no public benefit in this woman being sent to prison.

And if that's what the woman wants to do then great.

I don't think jailing this woman serves anyones interests least of all the public. There's no public safety component and I find it difficult to see what rehabilitation aspect there might be. Is she supposed to be regretful by the end of 2 years? Have another child to make up for it? Maybe she will still be relieved she doesn't have another child to raise to 18 in what sounded like difficult circumstances.

I think it's okay and probably normal to be sad, upset, horrified etc. that she did something many of us wouldn't or feel we wouldn't do but I still maintain that criminalising her achieves nothing helpful.

It's not A-OK. It's the best of a very very awful and troubling set of options. Because removing personhood from women and making them into a walking incubator, subject to forced birth is the worst option.

Since when does feminism mean treating adult women like stupid little girls?? Forced birth? Please. She had unprotected sex. She didn't take emergency contraceptive. She had 12 weeks (at least) to get an abortion.

She then chose to murder her baby in a pretty horrifying way.

I could not have any less sympathy for that piece of shit if I tried.

How about we get real here. We can't change the fact that if we have unprotected sex and get pregnant there are consequences. And there are even choices these days. It's not "forced incubation" it's the natural result of your action and subsequent inaction.

When did feminism stop being about seeing women as future leaders and CEOs and become about infantilising the fuck out of us, to the point that we now apparently deserve sympathy because we're too stupid / emotionally unstable not to kill our own offspring?

@cyncope

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2020/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2020

That may be of interest. Figures are around 20,000 a year which I imagine has increased since 2020.

cyncope · Today 21:13

I do believe that pregnant women should have total power and control over their body including a being inside them”

Agree, until that “being” becomes viable.
If the child had been born alive despite her mother’s very late intervention and she had immediately killed it, she would be looking at a very long sentence.

There are limits for good reasons.

Come off it, we know what a baby is too. Are you seriously going to argue that it's position (in or out of a womb) that makes it a baby or a fetus? You might as well argue someone in the women's loo is a woman.

This.

So they should be able to drink a bottle of vodka a day while pregnant?

Absolutely right she should be in jail. She was 32-34 weeks pregnant when she took those tablets and lied to get them. She knew what she was doing. I’m in full agreement with women having control over their bodies and accessing abortions within the nhs guidelines. This woman murdered her baby. The baby could survive outside the womb and if she had done anything if the baby had been born at 32-34 weeks then she would be in jail for murder. I think they made the correct decision.

That’s rather an extreme version of ‘not a person until born’. Reminds me of a science fiction story where the ‘personhood’ definition was ‘starting school’. Well, why not? Women should be able to decide that parenthood was a mistake, for any reason and at any point.

(Let’s just say quite a lot of ‘terrible two’s’ went down the disposal chute.)

The current law, imperfect as it is, tries to distinguish between viable and non viable. A pregnancy that threatens the mother’s life is not viable. A severely disabled foetus is probably not viable. When the law was passed, 24 weeks was the limit of viability. Personhood was effectively defined as ‘able to survive with the same kind of NHS medical intervention we’d give to anyone’.

A healthy foetus of 32 to 34 weeks old was entirely viable - this was a crime, just as an infanticide of a newborn would have been a crime.

So the line is, breathing outside the womb.

"Viable" is a little meaningless.

You didn't answer my question.

I understand what the current law is, I just disagree with it. It has lead to a woman being jailed who in my opinion shouldn't have been.

They are able to. There's no law against it? I'm sure some women do.

The lying to knowingly get and take the pills is where she lost any sympathy.

before I read the article I presumed she had made a mistake by a few weeks I.e 12 not 10 and was ready to 100% support her. But she knew what gestational age range the pills were for, she had googled it, and how to abort a 30 week old fetus. She knew exactly what she was doing. To then say she’s traumatised by seeing the babies face…what did she expect?

the fact she is a mother should also make no bearing on her sentence. Many mothers are jailed daily so are fathers.