Public anger rises after a judge decided to prosecute a woman who secured pills for a late-term abortion.
Protesters hold banners during an Abortion Rights Solidarity demonstration in London in July, 2022
[File: Henry Nicholls/Reuters]
Published On 13 Jun 2023
Women’s rights groups, politicians and medics are calling on the British government to reform abortion laws after a woman was jailed for taking pills to end her pregnancy after the 24-week limit.
The 44-year-old mother of three was sent the medicine by post during a COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, a scheme that was introduced during the pandemic because many in-person services were closed due to social distancing measures.
A court heard this week that she misled the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) about how far along in the pregnancy she was, in order to secure the pills.
On Monday, she was sentenced to 28 months in prison after admitting to terminating her pregnancy when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant.
Abortions in Britain are legal before 24 weeks and must be carried out in clinics after 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The prosecution said the woman searched “how to hide a pregnancy bump”, “how to have an abortion without going to the doctor”, and “how to lose a baby at six months” on the internet between February and May 2020.
She also pleaded guilty to an alternative charge relating to a law that is more than 160 years old – Section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
She will serve half her sentence in prison and the remaining time under licence, supervised by probation.
Calls demanding an end to a law being described as outdated are growing.
Dame Diana Johnson, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, urged the government to “step up” and decriminalise abortions.
Harriet Wistrich, head of the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ), questioned the legislation and the prosecution of the woman.
“What possible purpose is served in criminalising and imprisoning this woman when at most she needs better access to healthcare and other support?” Wistrich said. “She is clearly already traumatised by the experience and now her children will be left without their mother for over a year.”
Chiara Capraro, head of Amnesty International’s women’s human rights programme, described the decision as “shocking and quite frankly terrifying”.
“Access to abortion is essential healthcare and should be managed as such.”
Former chief crown prosecutor for the northwest of England, Nazir Afzal argued that it was not in the public interest to prosecute.
Citing public feeling towards laws restricting abortions and her mitigating factors, he told the BBC: “Had I been involved, had I been doing this particular case, I would not have prosecuted it.
“This whole terrible event took place during the pandemic and people were making some terrible choices during that period that perhaps they regret now. And I think that’s one of the things I would have factored in, in relation to this particular case.”
Protesters hold signs as they attend an Abortion Rights Solidarity demonstration, in London, Britain [File: Henry Nicholls/Reuters]
The judge presiding over the case, Justice Edward Pepperall, said: “This case concerns one woman’s tragic and unlawful decision to obtain a very late abortion.
“The balance struck by the law between a woman’s reproductive right and the rights of her unborn foetus is an emotive and controversial issue. That is, however, a matter for Parliament and not for the courts.”
But some took to social media to share their outrage over the conviction, with one woman saying the decision by the Crown Court was “depraved” and a “burning injustice”.
Nadia Whittome, a politician with the main opposition Labour Party, tweeted: “No woman should be in prison for making decisions about her own body. This shocking case highlights the urgent need to change the law. Abortion is healthcare. It must be decriminalised, now.”
The judge presiding over the case, Justice Edward Pepperall, said: “This case concerns one woman’s tragic and unlawful decision to obtain a very late abortion.
“The balance struck by the law between a woman’s reproductive right and the rights of her unborn foetus is an emotive and controversial issue. That is, however, a matter for Parliament and not for the courts.”
But some took to social media to share their outrage over the conviction, with one woman saying the decision by the Crown Court was “depraved” and a “burning injustice”.
Nadia Whittome, a politician with the main opposition Labour Party, tweeted: “No woman should be in prison for making decisions about her own body. This shocking case highlights the urgent need to change the law. Abortion is healthcare. It must be decriminalised, now.”
BPAS tweeted: “No woman can ever go through this again. We need abortion law reform in Great Britain NOW.”
Dame Diana, who has previously tried to repeal 1861 legislation, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think Parliament has a role now to look at reforming our abortion laws. There’s no other country in the world, as I understand it, that would criminalise a woman in this way.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
Abortion law reform: a question of safety?
Jailing of woman who took abortion pills after legal limit leads to calls to scrap ‘archaic’ 1861 legislation
‘Apply the law as provided’
In sentencing at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, Judge Edward Pepperall rejected appeals from health organisations for a non-custodial sentence, saying it was the court’s duty to “apply the law as provided by Parliament”.
Cases like this are “exceptionally rare… complex and traumatic”, a CPS spokesperson told BBC News. “Our prosecutors have a duty to ensure that laws set by Parliament are properly considered and applied when making difficult charging decisions.”
The Abortion Act of 1967 legalised abortions in England, Scotland and Wales within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. A termination can take place after 24 weeks if “the mother's life is at risk or if the child will be severely disabled”, said i news.
But the Victorian-era law was never repealed, “meaning that parts of it still apply – for example when a woman carries out an abortion over the time limit”, said the BBC. “The law is framed in a way that means abortion is not a right”, said Sky News.
‘Desperate need for legal reform’
“It makes a case for Parliament to start looking at this issue in detail,” Caroline Nokes, Conservative MP and chair of the Women and Equalities select committee, told BBC Radio 4’s “World Tonight” programme. Cases like this “throw into sharp relief that we are relying on legislation that is very out of date”.
The case also underscores the “desperate need for legal reform in relation to reproductive health”, said Chiara Capraro, women’s human rights director at Amnesty International UK.
“No other healthcare procedure has such a status,” Labour MP Stella Creasy tweeted. “We need urgent reform to make safe access for all women in England, Scotland and Wales a human right.”
Creasy plans to table an amendment to the new Bill of Rights, similar to the one she had passed in 2019, which made abortion a human right in Northern Ireland.
Without reform of this “archaic law”, Clare Murphy, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme, more women and girls would face “the trauma of lengthy police investigations and the threat of prison”.
Jailing of woman who took abortion pills after legal limit leads to calls to scrap ‘archaic’ 1861 legislation
THE WEEK UK
13 JUN 2023
Campaigners clash during an abortion rally in London last year
Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Campaigners, healthcare organisations and some MPs are calling for reform of UK abortion law after a woman was jailed for terminating her pregnancy after the legal limit during the first national lockdown.
Repeal the Eighth: how have abortion services changed in Ireland five years on?
The debate around abortion buffer zones
The end of home abortions
Carla Foster, a mother of three, was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant in May 2020 when she took abortion pills designed for terminations in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The foetus was stillborn.
Foster, 44, was initially charged with child destruction, which she denied, said the i news site. In March this year, she pleaded guilty to “administering drugs to procure abortion, contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act”, which still criminalises abortion in the UK and carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Foster was sentenced to 28 months, and ordered to serve half the sentence in prison.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that Foster provided false information during her remote medical appointment, saying she was seven weeks pregnant, according to Sky News.
Foster obtained the medication via the so-called “pills by post” scheme, introduced during lockdown for women to carry out abortions up to 10 weeks at home. It was made permanent last year despite opposition from some religious groups who raised concerns about a lack of safeguarding or on-hand doctors.
13 JUN 2023
Campaigners clash during an abortion rally in London last year
Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Campaigners, healthcare organisations and some MPs are calling for reform of UK abortion law after a woman was jailed for terminating her pregnancy after the legal limit during the first national lockdown.
Repeal the Eighth: how have abortion services changed in Ireland five years on?
The debate around abortion buffer zones
The end of home abortions
Carla Foster, a mother of three, was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant in May 2020 when she took abortion pills designed for terminations in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The foetus was stillborn.
Foster, 44, was initially charged with child destruction, which she denied, said the i news site. In March this year, she pleaded guilty to “administering drugs to procure abortion, contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act”, which still criminalises abortion in the UK and carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Foster was sentenced to 28 months, and ordered to serve half the sentence in prison.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that Foster provided false information during her remote medical appointment, saying she was seven weeks pregnant, according to Sky News.
Foster obtained the medication via the so-called “pills by post” scheme, introduced during lockdown for women to carry out abortions up to 10 weeks at home. It was made permanent last year despite opposition from some religious groups who raised concerns about a lack of safeguarding or on-hand doctors.
‘Apply the law as provided’
In sentencing at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, Judge Edward Pepperall rejected appeals from health organisations for a non-custodial sentence, saying it was the court’s duty to “apply the law as provided by Parliament”.
Cases like this are “exceptionally rare… complex and traumatic”, a CPS spokesperson told BBC News. “Our prosecutors have a duty to ensure that laws set by Parliament are properly considered and applied when making difficult charging decisions.”
The Abortion Act of 1967 legalised abortions in England, Scotland and Wales within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. A termination can take place after 24 weeks if “the mother's life is at risk or if the child will be severely disabled”, said i news.
But the Victorian-era law was never repealed, “meaning that parts of it still apply – for example when a woman carries out an abortion over the time limit”, said the BBC. “The law is framed in a way that means abortion is not a right”, said Sky News.
‘Desperate need for legal reform’
“It makes a case for Parliament to start looking at this issue in detail,” Caroline Nokes, Conservative MP and chair of the Women and Equalities select committee, told BBC Radio 4’s “World Tonight” programme. Cases like this “throw into sharp relief that we are relying on legislation that is very out of date”.
The case also underscores the “desperate need for legal reform in relation to reproductive health”, said Chiara Capraro, women’s human rights director at Amnesty International UK.
“No other healthcare procedure has such a status,” Labour MP Stella Creasy tweeted. “We need urgent reform to make safe access for all women in England, Scotland and Wales a human right.”
Creasy plans to table an amendment to the new Bill of Rights, similar to the one she had passed in 2019, which made abortion a human right in Northern Ireland.
Without reform of this “archaic law”, Clare Murphy, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme, more women and girls would face “the trauma of lengthy police investigations and the threat of prison”.
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