WA Brit has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for lying about her pregnancy status to get abortion medication in the mail during the coronavirus lockdown. Prosecutors said in the trial, which ended Monday, that a pregnancy counseling center sent the drug to the woman believing she was seven weeks pregnant. In fact, she was already 32-34 weeks (seventh-eight months) pregnant. In England, Scotland and Wales abortion is generally legal up to the 24th week, but must take place in a clinic after the 10th week.
As the Guardian reported, the mother of three received the drugs after remote counseling as part of the “Pills by Mail” scheme introduced during the coronavirus pandemic for unwanted pregnancies of up to 10 weeks. After receiving the drug, she gave birth to her baby, the alarmed emergency services declared his death. The court called the case “tragic” and sentenced the woman to 14 months in prison and 14 more months of probation.
According to prosecutors, the woman had knowingly misled the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by saying she was under the 10-week limit, when she believed she was around 28 weeks pregnant. According to the investigation, the woman previously conducted an extensive internet search between February and May 2020, using search terms such as “I need an abortion, but I’m past 24 weeks” and “Could I go to jail if I gave birth to my baby in her 30th week?” . week”.
The 44-year-old woman pleaded guilty in March and will serve half of her 28-month sentence in prison and the remainder on probation.
Abortion laws ‘a holdover from another era’
In April, a plea for reduced sentences was delivered to the judge, signed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, among others. “We ask Your Honor to show clemency in this case. We are concerned that imprisonment in this case could signal other women who use telemedicine abortion services or who later experience abortions that they risk imprisonment if they seek medical assistance,” it said. The judge called the letter “inadequate” and added that he “does not accept that imprisonment in this case prevents women and girls from lawfully obtaining an abortion within the 24-week limit.”
After the sentencing, Clare Murphy, chief executive of BPAS, said she was “shocked and appalled” by the sentence. “Over the past three years, there has been an increase in the number of women and girls who face the trauma of lengthy police investigations and who face life sentences under our archaic abortion laws.”
According to BPAS, the number of women and girls facing police investigations and the threat of life imprisonment under current abortion laws has increased over the past three years. In 2022, a woman who was taking abortion drugs in a failed attempt to terminate her own pregnancy was reported to the police by her doctors.
Labor MP Stella Creasy said: “It is a holdover from another era that our abortion laws are not based on health considerations but primarily on criminal sanctions. This case shows that failure to change this has very real implications for today.”
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