A woman jailed for lying to procure a “tragic… very late abortion” sparked indignation from the media and political classes, who are clamouring for the law used to convict her to be stricken down.
A woman who knew her pregnancy was well over the legal limit for an abortion but lied over the telephone to get abortion pills by post has been sentenced to 28 months imprisonment, “up to” 14 months of which will actually be served behind bars.
Judge Mr Justice Pepperall found that Carla Foster, a 44-year-old mother of two living children knew that she was 30 weeks pregnant when she made a “tragic and unlawful decision to obtain a very late abortion” with a pill meant to be used on pregnancies no further along than ten weeks. In fact, a post-mortem of baby Lily born after Foster took a dose of mifepristone on May 9th 2020 found it was between 32 and 34 weeks old.
In UK law, abortion is not legal after 24 weeks.
As British children’s and pregnancy charity, Tommy’s, says of children born at 33 weeks: “If your baby was born this week, they would be classed as moderate to late preterm. It’s unlikely that they will have any severe problems associated with being born prematurely”. Although the coroner found no evidence the baby had been able to take a breathe independently and Lily was declared dead at the scene by paramedics, it was also the case that “there was no sign of natural disease or trauma that could explain her death” beyond the abortion itself.
In his published sentencing remarks, the judge said that Foster knew she had been pregnant for months and had an internet search history looking for how to induce a miscarriage and how to get an abortion past the legal limit. The mother ultimately “gave false answers” during a remote consultation with an abortion provider called the British Pregnancy Advice Service to get the pills by deception.
The judge wrote that after taking the pills, Foster continued lying during her miscarriage and afterwards, telling paramedics, medical staff, and police she was not aware she was pregnant. Judge Pepperall wrote: “Your culpability is high in that your pregnancy was between 32-34 weeks’ gestation; you knew full well that your pregnancy was well beyond the legal limit of 24 weeks; you deliberately lied in order to bring yourself within the telemedical service for early medical abortions”.
Foster was able to access the pills without an in-person meeting with a medical professional because the United Kingdom had introduced abortions by post due to coronavirus lockdowns. While the move was said to be temporary, so-called home abortions via “telemedicine” were formalised and made permanent in 2022.
Despite the tragic nature of the case and the “very high” harm caused by Foster’s decision to lie to “obtain a very late abortion”, much of the UK establishment media and political response to the case has been anger at the fact she was jailed at all, alongside calls to change the laws used to convict.
The Independent reports there was “outrage” over the case and that a Conservative politician has said the “out-of-date” law should be overhauled. The BBC’s “most read” story on the judgement leads with campaigners urging reform, again claiming that because the law criminalising late-term abortions dates to 1861, it is no longer fit for use.
The Guardian reported that ministers are being “urged to relax abortion laws in Great Britain after woman jailed”, and its coverage of the case otherwise was so scant it didn’t even name the convicted, referring to Carla Foster only as “the mother”.
Despite the “outrage” over the fact the woman was jailed, few have reported the judge’s remarks that she could have avoided going to prison at all, even after her decision to go ahead with the illegal abortion, by being more truthful. The judge said: “Among the many tragedies in this case is that you did not indicate your guilty plea at the earliest opportunity in the magistrates’ court. Had that been done, the sentence of imprisonment that I am now obliged to pass would in law have been capable of being suspended.”
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