Yesterday a woman received a 28 month sentence, with over a year in custody, for using abortion pills to end her pregnancy. Humanists UK has reacted with shock and horror, and calls for immediate action to reform abortion law in England and Wales.
Carla Foster, a mother of three, will spend 14 months in custody and a further 14 months on licence, as she took abortion bills outside the legal limit using pills at home during the pandemic. Ms Foster was initially charged with child destruction which she denied and later pled guilty to an offence under a Victorian law, the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.
The problem raised by the rights organisation is that the law used to charge the woman is one that should not be on the books - it essentially leaves wide open space to find women guilty for having an abortion for any reason. It’s an archaic law used just because the judge and prosecution wanted to find the woman guilty of something so they just went with whatever would work.
The reason that the woman waited so long to get an abortion is due to a lack of access to healthcare and resources in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The woman was searching online about how to get an abortion at a point where it was entirely legal for her to do so, but she was unable to access those services due to the pandemic.
Ah well, I would say those are all mitigated circumstances against the sentence. The other articles I read on this left that last part out.
If she tried to access an abortion legally within the humane timeframe and couldn’t because of the ongoing pandemic, then I can understand why this is seen as an injustice.
To add, any law that old should be looked at and renewed, there should be a parliamentary process for this.
And now, this woman, a mother to three children who are still alive (one of whom is disabled) is going to be incarcerated for over a year. For what purpose? The woman is clearly not a danger to society, it’s not like she’s going to be a repeat offender of this crime. Prison as a form of punishment is inhumane and does not deter crime - this is well known. As for rehabilitation, what here would need to be rehabilitated?
This entire case is disgusting and it will hugely harm the welfare of her and her children for entirely no good reason, has cost the taxpayer who knows how much, has wasted the courts time, and all of this just to make an entirely needless point.
Totally agree that it’s the wrong punishment. It’s not as if she would go around getting further abortions unless they locked her up.
Absolutely - and I’d go further, too. All the studies and research shows that punitive measures do nothing to deter crime, so the question has to be asked - from a logical standpoint, why punish her at all? I agree it is absolutely tragic that a baby suffered due to her actions but the judge himself said that she seemed extremely remorseful and the poor woman has already suffered so much. Who does it benefit to punish her further? Our courts are supposed to be part of our so-called “justice system” - if this act of callous, senseless, needless violence is “justice” then the world really should perish.
I’m interested where you got that information, because I think you are wrong about some of the facts of the case.
The web searches I’d read about were things like “How to get an abortion at 6 months”, which were considered aggravating circumstances as it reinforced that she was fully aware of what she was doing.
There is certainly a case for keeping law’s up to date, but equally this country has been very well served by having a sufficiently sensible law that abortion is not a live political issue.