Carla Foster, a mother in the UK who was sentenced to 28 months in prison for illegally inducing an abortion during lockdown, will be released early, after the Court of Appeal reduced her sentence.
Last month, Carla, who admitted to procuring an abortion at 32-to-34 weeks, was sentenced to 28 months in prison (half in custody and the remainder on licence). Today, the Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to 14 months suspended.
The court heard that Foster had not been permitted any communication with her children, one of whom is autistic, during her 35-day incarceration.
Dame Victoria Sharp, who presided over the London court on Tuesday, called it “a very sad case,” adding, “It is a case that calls for compassion, not punishment.”
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) tweeted: “The court of appeal has today recognised that this cruel, antiquated law does not reflect the values of society today. Now is the time to reform abortion law so that no more women are unjustly criminalised for taking desperate actions at a desperate time in their lives.”
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Back in June, ahead of the initial sentencing, Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, tweeted what many of us were thinking: “This is happening here, not America, El Salvador or Poland. Here in the UK.”
She's got a point: On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion by reversing Roe v. Wade; in El Salvador, abortion is fully criminalised in all circumstances; and in Poland, there is a near-total ban on abortions.
But why are we labouring under the illusion that UK laws on abortion are more progressive? Are we actually surprised that a woman has been dragged through the criminal courts for exercising basic bodily autonomy? If so, we've been dangerously naive and, worse, complicit.
The so-called “right” to abortion in England and Wales comes from the Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990).
However, rather than conferring a legal right for women and people with uteruses to choose if they want to continue a pregnancy, it merely provides a list of exemptions to the criminalisation of abortion.
Thus, abortion is only legal if it is performed by a registered medical practitioner (a doctor) and is authorised by two doctors, acting in good faith, on one (or more) of the following grounds:
This is not decriminalisation. And it's not enough.
During the sentencing hearing (Monday, 12th June), the prosecution told the court that Carla Foster had known she was pregnant for three months before taking the medication, adding that “she had made various web searches around concealing a pregnancy and inducing a miscarriage.”
The court also heard that police attended the hospital while she gave birth to a stillborn baby.
It's impossible to fully comprehend the ordeal that Carla has endured. The prosecution, subsequent court proceedings, and the prison sentence should never – ever – have been inflicted on her.
Last summer, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, along with over 65 healthcare and women's rights organisations, signed an open letter to Max Hill QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions at the CPS, to stop prosecuting women who end their own pregnancies.
The letter notes how 17 women have been investigated by police for ending their own pregnancies in the past eight years, adding that, “It is never in the public interest to charge women who end their own pregnancy, and no woman should face investigation or prosecution for ending a pregnancy or experiencing unexpected or unexplained pregnancy loss.”
As well as welcoming the reduced sentence, Stella Creasy, the Labour MP, called for abortion reform: “The relief that this woman can go home to be with her children is tempered by the knowledge there are more cases to come where women in England [are] being prosecuted and investigated.”
For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
Abortions = healthcare.
