A Controversial Court Ruling Has Britain ’ s Abortion Rights Groups Up in Arms

U.K. abortion rights groups are planning large demonstrations on Saturday outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice, after a woman was controversially jailed on Monday under an 1861 law for using drugs to induce a medical abortion past legal term limits. The case has sparked outcry and calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the U.K., as well as the full decriminalization of abortion. Carla Foster, a 44-year-old mother of three, was sentenced to 28 months in custody for using a “pills by post” initiative for at-home medical abortions. Women up to 10 weeks pregnant are eligible to receive these prescriptions but Stoke on Trent crown court found that Foster misled the British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s (BPAS) telemedicine provider by saying she was around seven weeks along, when she was 32 to 34 weeks pregnant. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Foster had told the court that she was unsure of how far along she was in her pregnancy, and did not visit a doctor out of “embarrassment.” Foster initially pleaded not guilty to a charge of an offense of child destruction, but later pleaded guilty to a different offense under Section 58 of the Offenses Against the Person Act (OAPA) that relates to “administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion.” The maximum sentence in the U.K. for such charges is life imprisonment. “When the news broke, there was an avalanche of women asking what can we ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized abortion Second click United Kingdom Source Type: news