A British mother of three has been given a 28-month sentence – 14 to be served behind bars, the rest on probation – after terminating a pregnancy outside the legal limit, using mail-order drugs.
Reproductive rights groups in the country are now calling for legislative changes.
Carla Foster (44) received the medication under a programme introduced by the government during the pandemic that allowed women to administer the drugs at home without an in-person consultation.
The Washington Post reports that although the programme was approved for pregnancies of up to 10 weeks, the British court found that Foster gave the British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s telemedicine provider “false” information that she was around seven weeks’ pregnant.
Her internet search history on the day she administered the first of two abortion drugs suggested she believed she was about 28 weeks along, the judge said at the sentencing hearing this week.
Two days later, on 11 May 2020, she took a second drug and delivered a stillborn baby that evening. A post-mortem examination concluded she was 32 to 34 weeks’ pregnant.
Foster pleaded guilty under legislation that dates to 1861 that carries a potential term of life imprisonment, which abortion rights advocates have said was “the harshest penalty in the world.”
In his sentencing, Justice Edward Pepperall described it as a “tragic case,” saying Foster has been “racked by guilt.” At the time of the termination, she had been forced to move back in with her estranged partner during Britain’s coronavirus lockdowns, and had attempted to conceal that she was pregnant with another man’s child.
While he recognised her “emotional turmoil”, Pepperall said, his duty was to apply the laws as determined by the country’s Parliament. He dismissed a letter, signed by a number of health groups including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, that was sent to the court calling for a lenient sentence.
“If the medical profession considers that judges are wrong to imprison women who procure a late abortion outside the 24-week limit, then it should lobby Parliament to change that law and not judges who are charged with the duty of applying the law,” he said.
Abortions are legal in Britain until 24 weeks, and are generally carried out after that time only if a mother’s life is endangered or the child would be born with a severe disability, and only under medical supervision in a hospital or clinic.
Some anti-abortion groups argue that the British abortion rules are too lax, noting that many European countries limit non-medical abortions to the first trimester, and have called for an end to the at-home use of abortion pills.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which provides abortion services and campaigns for women’s reproductive rights, said the number of women facing criminal investigation under what it described as “cruel and outdated” abortion laws was increasing.
“We are seeing a mother of three children, one with special needs, being imprisoned because of a law from the 1800s that is simply out of date for today’s country,” Stella Creasy, an opposition Labour lawmaker, said, calling for “urgent” legal reforms. She said the current laws denied women “bodily autonomy.”
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