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

cyncope · Today 21:35
MrsSkylerWhite · Today 21:22

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.

“So the line is, breathing outside the womb.

"Viable" is a little meaningless”

It wasn’t when we believed we were losing our son at 23 weeks. That was the term used as the time by medical professionals , that he was not yet considered “viable”
thank providence he hung on and is now 20 and 6ft 4.

Yes, absolutely, breathing outside the womb. That’s not a foetus, it’s a child.

It may not be illegal in the UK, but that hardly means it isn't very seriously wrong, or that the law shouldn't be changed.

She will need to be segregated for her own protection. Baby killers are not treated well.

She's not a baby killer you absolute weapon

I doubt anyone here thinks it's a good thing but how do you imagine that should be policed? Any woman of legal drinking age up to roughly age 60 in theory could be pregnant at any time. Should all women in that age bracket not be allowed to purchase alcohol just in case?

There's a reason why many women are really cautious about even the difficult cases, the unpleasant cases leading to laws that start to infringe on what women are allowed to do.

As the English language is commonly used, it's both a "fetus" and a "baby" / "unborn baby".

I think "baby killer" language is more of a moral question rather than something you can answer by looking up definitions.

Killing means "an act of causing death, especially deliberately." Is that not what she did?

No, the law shouldn't be changed.

OK, what about deliberately administering a poison to the fetus intended not necessarily to kill but to harm?

You think that children who are raped who will die giving birth should be forced to give birth anyway.

Why are you on the feminism board when you clearly despise women?

Pregnant women can take whatever they like.

'abortion' at 30-something weeks is just not on, that's a universally held view, not in the single liberalest European democracy etc is it even nearly legal, it's miles away from it.

i say that as someone who would be the first on the barricades if the UK ever took even a first baby step towards US style anti-choice restrictions.

mothers should only be going to jail if they've committed an exceptionally serious crime which, very sadly here in a case in which the were no winners, this regrettably absolutely was.

She killed a baby! A baby is pretty much fully developed at 30 weeks and this baby was 32-34 weeks when she killed it. It could’ve survived outside the womb. It was hardly a clump of cells. I know someone who was born at 28 weeks!

I cannot understand why so many people are expressing sympathy for someone who murdered a viable unborn child. So many babies are born under 30 weeks and live. I wonder if the poor baby suffered a lot due to her actions and I wonder how her other children feel about their mother killing their unborn sibling.
Mumsnet doesn’t reflect reality because I don’t know anyone in real life who would be sympathetic to a woman who attempts to abort a baby at over 32 weeks.
The judge got it right and the woman deserves her sentence. I feel so sorry for that poor baby and all the attempts to say that it is legally just a foetus may be technically correct but are morally disgusting

My opinion is that she should have been. This was a premeditated decision, involving deliberate lying and took place over an extended period of time. She had a number of opportunities to either prevent the pregnancy or abort it. Legally. She chose not to take them.

A lot of commentators seem to have gone on autopilot with this case. It will, for example, stop women being honest with their medical advisors … she wasn’t open and honest, she lied through her teeth to get the drugs. Or that access to abortion is essential healthcare … except the problem is that she had access to legal abortion for months.

From your other posts, you’re choosing what I’d call a mechanical cut-off point between ‘foetus’ and ‘person.’ Inside the womb, there’s no ‘person’, just a biological object that a woman has an absolute right to terminate and has total control over. Outside the womb, there is an independent person.

The problem with that is that biology isn’t mechanical. It doesn’t have strict cut off dates and we can’t really predict the exact date of a natural birth. There’s a point at which you can argue that we’re talking about a bundle of cells and there’s a point at which you can say the foetus is doing everything inside the womb it would be doing outside - except breathing, and it could manage that with a little help. Which point? It’s not exact (and may never be).

It’s difficult to argue we should be able to destroy a foetus because it can’t breathe independently whilst simultaneously providing assistance to adult patients who can’t breathe independently…

The current legal compromise is 24 weeks if both mother and child are healthy, or if any complications are treatable. Before that, the foetus has a poor chance of survival without its maternal life support system. After 24 weeks, it does … and that’s the point where we currently start balancing the rights of two people to their respective lives.

In response to "So women who have children should never be sent to jail?" And other similar comments.... Court is already required to consider the impact on children when sending a primary career to prison. Doesn't mean they won't ever go to prison but it's a well established legal requirement that the impact on children must be factored into sentencing.

For my part, I support a woman's choices right up to birth. It doesn't mean I find those choices easy or comfortable. The alternative seems dire for women - where would it stop.

The baby was eight months though. I don't think we are talking about a foetus.

Being a mother doesn't mean you are above the law. I can't kill someone and then expect not to receive a prison sentence because well, it would be sad for my kids....Jesus.

My heart goes out to anyone having a termination for medical reasons. I know that many TFMRs prevent a fetus with a life-limiting condition from ever suffering. And I’ve read of equally heart-breaking cases in which women had little choice but to end their pregnancies in order to start urgent cancer treatment.

I don’t think it’s right to terminate a (presumably) healthy fetus very late in pregnancy unless there are serious medical reasons. I can understand a woman not wanting to be pregnant anymore and requesting an induction or C-section, but I don’t agree she should have the right to ensure her baby is stillborn. A full-term fetus is more than a potential human being - it’s already a sentient human infant.

What has her being a mother of three got to do with the price of baked beans?

Personally I think that's completely immoral.

For my part, I support a woman's choices right up to birth

Are you saying that you can support termination up to 39 weeks?
Deaths or serious complications are extremely rare. How can you possibly justify the above right to choice?

She's not a baby killer you absolute weapon

So what was she carrying then?
Tin of rice? Nintendo DS? 6 pack of quavers?

JFC we'd just had a one thousand post bunfight in AIBU over this.

The difference between infanticide and really late abortion is the use of the mother's body as life support for the baby. In infanticide, that baby can be immediately handed to any competent adult to care for him/her. In late abortion, that's not the case without the baby leaving the mother's body first. The argument is then about whether she has the right to decide how and when the baby leaves her body at that stage in the pregnancy. But pretending that there's no difference at all is a false equivalence between someone born and someone not born.

It doesn't really matter whether you think she is or not, but what the other inmates think. If they think what she has done constitutes killing a baby then they will treat her as such and she would be at risk.

Whichever side of the debate you're on, you can clearly see there is many on both of them. You don't think it is, but you're not the one inside with her.