The Justice of the United Kingdom has sentenced a mother of three children to more than two years in prison for inducing an abortion outside the legal limits of the country. The defendant, Carla Foster, 44, has been sentenced to 28 months in jail, of which she will be in custody for 14 months and the rest with permits, according to the BBC television network.
Foster received the medication after a remote consultation in which she did not tell the truth about how far along she was in her pregnancy. The "pills by mail" program was introduced during the lockdown and allows pregnancies of up to ten weeks to be terminated at home, after this date the procedure has to be carried out in a clinic.
In the UK abortion is legal up to the 24th week, however according to the court the woman was between 32 and 34 weeks. According to information she provided to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the tablets were sent to her because she was estimated to be seven weeks pregnant.
In May 2020, after taking the abortion pills, she made an emergency call saying she was in labor. The baby was born without breathing and her death was confirmed 45 minutes later. The autopsy determined that the cause of the girl's death was due to maternal consumption of abortifacient drugs.
Prosecutors have said that the defendant had provided false information knowing that she had exceeded the legal time limit and that she had conducted Internet searches that indicated "careful planning".
His legal team, for its part, has explained that the COVID-19 pandemic, and its consequent reduction in face-to-face appointments to a minimum, had changed access to medical care, for which reason he had to search for information on digital platforms. . "The defendant could well have made use of the services if they had been available at the time," said her attorney Barry White. "This will haunt her forever."
The court accepted that Foster was "in emotional turmoil" as she sought to conceal the pregnancy because she had moved back in with her estranged partner at the start of the quarantine while pregnant with another man.
Ahead of Monday's hearing, several women's health organizations have sent the court a jointly signed letter asking for a non-custodial sentence. The judge, who noted that she was a good mother to her three other children, one of whom has special needs, has said that a non-custodial sentence "was not appropriate" and that her duty was "to apply the law as provided ".
The ruling has sparked protests among women's rights organizations and activists. Britain's Pregnancy Advisory Service has said it was "shocked and appalled" by the ruling, which is based on "archaic law". "Over the past three years, there has been an increase in the number of women and girls facing the trauma of lengthy police investigations and threats of up to life in prison under our archaic abortion law," said BPAS Executive Director Clare Murphy. .
Thus, he has stressed that "no woman can go through this again" and has indicated that "vulnerable women in the most incredibly difficult circumstances deserve more" from the legal system. Labor MP Stella Creasy has joined the criticism of the sentence, arguing that "the average prison sentence for a violent crime in England is 18 months."
"A woman who had an abortion without following the correct procedures has just been given 28 months under an 1868 law - we urgently need reform to make safe access for all women in England, Scotland and Wales a human right" , has urged.
