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

In response to the OP I have no idea what this woman was thinking or going through in terms of psychological distress but I agree a prison term is inappropriate. I'm not in favour of unrestricted abortion at every stage of pregnancy but I don't believe it should be treated as a criminal matter for the woman. It's a medical ethics issue and I would argue this was a failure of medical care, regardless of my opinion of what she did.

Oh my goodness. I don’t usually get involved in this kind of thing but it is absolutely amazing to me that there are people on this thread quite sincerely advocating for full term ‘abortion’.

And suggesting that she should be home with her other children - what about this behaviour suggests she is a fit mother? She put the fact that she wanted to hide a pregnancy over the life of her child.

What this woman did was murder. Stop sanitising this by calling it an abortion and calling the child a foetus.

In a country where morning after pills, early term abortion and an adoption and care system are all accessible there is absolutely no reason this had to happen. Even with covid restrictions - which happened later into her pregnancy. Mental health also is not an excuse to murder your almost full term child, or to commit any crime for that matter - it’s still a crime and I think the mental health defence is used far too liberally, her google searches and repeated lying show she knew what she was doing.

Fwiw during my pregnancy one of my milestones to reach was 34 weeks due to a medical condition. I did make it beyond that but had the risk outweighed the benefits the doctors would have agreed to induce me then - does that mean my fully viable baby was just a foetus.

The defence of this woman is utterly bonkers.

You can easily support a woman's right to end a pregnancy at 39 weeks without supporting abortion at that stage. A woman who can't cope with being pregnant any more at that point should be able to request an induction or a scheduled C-section. This will end the pregnancy. The baby can then, if the mother doesn't want them, be put up for adoption. There is just no need to kill the baby, and demanding that the mother has that right is morally equivalent to demanding that the mother be allowed to kill her newborn.

But we do. All the time. If you're arguing that we shouldn't force people to get pregnant then sure, I agree with you. In the same way we shouldn't force people to chop off their legs or kill themselves or have breast reductions or take hormones. But people don't actually have the right to "change their current state" however they wish and whenever they feel like and for whatever reason. My DPs spent a lot of nightshifts ensuring people don't kill themselves - sometimes physically. If you were genuinely serious about chopping your legs off you'd be sectioned. I can't go to my doctor and demand a breast reduction, right now, because I don't want to have big boobs anymore. That's not how bodily autonomy works, is it?

You can legally have an abortion. Just not at 34 weeks for whatever reason you fancy fgs. That's not others dictating what you do with your body, that's just your body continuing to carry out its very natural function. If you don't want that function to occur you have multiple options that don't involve waiting until it's a fully formed baby only to murder it.

I agree with everything you said! My son almost arrived at 34 weeks and my doctor was not hugely concerned - the attitude was that he was basically ready to be born. The idea that some people here think that if I had turned around at that gestation and asked for a legal abortion is vile.

Women (in the uk where healthcare is free) are not helpless vessels. Don’t want to be pregnant? Contraception is free. Contraception failed? The morning after pill / abortion before 24 weeks is free. Get to 34 weeks pregnant and don’t want the baby? Adoption is available. Murdering your unborn baby because you changed your mind is quite correctly illegal.

Truthfully I don’t think she should have been allowed an abortion. To me that is now a baby who should be born. It’s horribly sad that she is experiencing unwanted pregnancy at this late stage, but I think the answer is to sort out our terrible social services.

At the moment (I know because I supported a woman professionally) it’s almost impossible to relinquish a child to adoption voluntarily. You are treated like a criminal and often your existing children come under child protection plans. It’s horribly invasive. Other countries would have something more meaningful to offer this lady.

So imaginary world, I’d want her to be told they could perform a c section under GA. She doesn’t have to meet the baby, concurrent foster carers would look after the baby from birth whilst the lady had (optional) therapy. After 3months if she still wanted to not have it, she signed the adoption papers.

You assume that if she didnt go to jail they would have remained in her care. There will be all manner of risk assessments and parenting assessments taken place and she may well be a risk to her other children in other ways given her ability to make such a choice in such a planned way.

My view is she shouldn't have been jailed, and given the judge's comments about pleading guilty early and getting a suspended sentence, maybe she was badly advised.

But for me, you only lock people up because they are a danger to society - murderers, sex offenders and arsonists. Even if you take the view this is murder, the chances of her doing this again, or causing a danger to anyone walking alongside her on the street are extremely close to zero (I assume she didn't have a record for anything else and she was 44 so unlikely to carry a healthy pregnancy to close to term). There is no benefit to prison and I don't think it will even work as a deterrent.

And yes health services are free (if you can get to see a doctor). But this was in lockdown. And yes, maybe she could have and should have sought advice earlier. But locking someone away when health services were virtually non-existent is wrong.

A community service would have been much more useful to society in this case. And I am still not sure it was in the public interest to prosecute, given the CPS can't get its act together to prosecute rapists.

I also think the whole lockdown excuse is a massive red herring. She had ample opportunity to work with health services for months and months before she did what she did. She did it in full knowledge of what it meant, what the law was and how she thought she could get away with it

There are lots of things that are illegal that we don’t always imprison people for. I was physically assaulted and robbed and that person didn’t go to prison, they had a community sentence.

I don’t agree with abortion once a baby is viable. I think it’s probably a bit late at the moment at 24 weeks. Ideally I think it would be 17/18 unless there is a serious abnormality found.

There is a balance of rights. The woman’s right to bodily autonomy is balance against the developing new life. It’s not an absolute right. At a certain point that balance changes. Presumably you would agree with this and not condone a mother murdering a newborn baby because she didn’t want it.
So then we are just arguing about when that balance tips. Having taught lots of children born at 26-39 weeks, I can’t see any rational reason to end the life of a baby at these kind of gestations.
I think we should enable women who do not want this baby to have c sections and give up for adoption. At the moment that would actually be almost impossible.
In my view it doesn’t help women to enagage in magical thinking that somehow unborn babies at that gestation are not human life. It also doesn’t usually help women to give them ever extended time, I’ve worked with vulnerable women since leaving teaching and so many struggle to make a decision about abortion right up until the deadline. It’s a hard choice. The deadline forces the decision. If the deadline were later they would prevaricate longer. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, it’s just human nature.

If, during covid, she got the pill sent to her at 34 weeks surely she could have done exactly the same thing at 8 weeks?

As others have said, we are fortunate in the UK, free contraception, free emergency contraception (morning after pill), free abortion within the law.

I don’t think we should change our laws. I think we have good laws on termination of pregnancy in this country. This kind of situation is vanishingly rare.

If we start on the process of changing our abortion laws we open ourselves up to the extreme polarisation which we can see in the USA, basically abortion on demand up to term on one side or no abortion at all at any stage on the other. I for one do not want to see that can of worms opened up here in the UK, taking up time, energy and resources from more important political debates.

I find this idea of complete "bodily autonomy" strange, but interesting as it's clearly the belief that a few people have that makes them see abortion as legal at any stage, even when most of us can see that there's another life at stake too.

What is "bodily autonomy" that it overrules any other right to life? To me, being pregnant is intrinsically about your body being the life support for two lives. That's just how life works. It's not some conspiracy to take women's independence away, it's how we all started our lives.And the rights of those two lives need balancing.
By seeking a late term abortion you're not exercising some sort of independence, you're asking others to help you change something about your body that will result in the death of a viable life. People who advocate the right to abortion at any stage want things to be black and white (anti abortion people are the same here) But they're just not.

@PomegranateOfPersephone - she could have got a pill from the doctor at 8 weeks, but she'd have been 8 weeks pregnant in December 2019 so well before COVID and before they started giving them out via online consultations.

I do think the questions that should be asked over this case are whether abortion pills should be given out that way, without physical examination or scan. I can see attachments widget way - making them accessible to women who may struggle to get to a GP for whatever reason is good, but this case has clearly highlighted a potential for abuse with tragic consequences.

@Fireyflies

I think that GPs being able to prescribe abortion pills for women to take at home sounds like a good idea. This means there is more than a phone call but it is more convenient for women than the previous system. A GP might also choose to send the pills without the need for an appointment if he or she knows the woman who is asking.

Before covid, I believe that a woman had to get herself to two separate appointments at a hospital for a medical abortion. She would have to sort out childcare, transport and have someone to accompany her on two days a day or so apart.

I agree, this idea of bodily autonomy doesn’t quite work. From the point of viability, in my opinion, the fœtus also has a claim to bodily autonomy. The bodily autonomy of mother and baby need to be held in balance.

Yes I can't see any reason for the pills to be taken in the clinic. Allowing them to be taken at home was a good move. But prescribing them via online consultations doesn't allow for any physical examination, as well as making it harder for the GP to pick up on any wider issues (eg if the woman is being pressured into it, has been abused, needs an STI test, etc)

She is 45 years old with 3 children already and perhaps couldn't face another pregnancy. Most women would understand possible desperation. Current law affords more empathy and consideration to a rapist who attacked a 13 year old child

She was over 75% of the way through the pregnancy. She could have put the child up for adoption.

GPs cannot prescribe or give out any sort of abortion pills.

@Fallenties - yes you're right, I see it's a specialist clinic not a GP. Which could be harder to get to for many.

Happy to see Caroline ‘TWAW’ Nokes MP calling for debate on updating the law - that is much needed.

Lock her up, throw away the key. It's 2023 not the dark ages... She literally just changed her mind. Disgusting.

I've just seen MPs want to change the law. I know the judge expressed irritation that he was lobbied about the case, saying he applies the law, and it's up to MPs to change it,

However I think people should be careful what they wish for. I'd rather the issue not opened up at all. Most of the time, women get abortions when they need them. If the issue is opened up, there may be more restrictions put in, given the direction of travel globally. I'd leave well alone, and at most amend sentencing guidelines (and talk to the CPS and police about wasting money pursuing these women).

Abolish the Human Rights Act because it's making most of you stupid as fuck. Governments can't send the boats back and people on here making excuses for a woman with three live children based on this act. She is 44 years old ffs.

I think I'd prefer to see the sentencing guidelines reconsidered, to give judges more discretion, rather than the law.

Like the judge said, she should have pled guilty from the get go. But she was playing ignorant and that's hard to prove with 3 prior live children. Her children really do not need a mother like that.