A 45-year-old British woman jailed for 28 months for using the abortion medication mifepristone beyond the 10-week legal limit was freed Tuesday by the Court of Appeal in London. File photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI
July 18 (UPI) — A British mother of three serving a 28-month prison sentence for a late abortion during COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 was freed Tuesday by the Court of Appeal in London.
Carla Foster, 45, who was jailed in June after pleading guilty to procuring a home medical abortion beyond the two-trimester legal limit, had her term reduced to a 14-month suspended sentence, by a panel of three judges who ruled Foster’s detention served “no useful purpose.”
“It is a case that calls for compassion, not punishment,” said Judge Dame Victoria Sharp and that the court had taken into account what she called the “exceptionally strong mitigation” of Foster’s case.
Foster had moved back in with her ex-partner at the start of lockdown in March 2020 pregnant with another man’s child, the court hearing last month heard.
She illegally obtained abortion medication from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in May 2020 by lying to the body that she was less than 10 weeks pregnant when she was in fact between 32 and 34 weeks, the court heard last month.
The medication triggered labor but the baby was pronounced dead by paramedics soon after being born.
Sentencing her to 28 months in prison, Mr. Justice Pepperall ruled she would serve 14 months of her term in custody with the final 14 months free on license.
During Tuesday’s appeal hearing, defense barrister Barry White criticized what he said was a critical omission by the original hearing of “vital reports” into Foster’s mental health and the impact the pandemic had on a pre-existing anxiety condition.
The judges heard that had Foster come clean with the police up front, it was “highly unlikely” she would have faced prosecution.
White also told the appeal court that the prison where Foster was being held had denied her any contact with her children, despite one of them being autistic.
Opposition Labor lawmaker Stella Creasy called for a re-think of the 162-year-old Offences Against the Person law used to prosecute Foster.
“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 being prosecuted and investigated for having abortions under this archaic legislation,” Creasy said in a Twitter post.
“That’s why we need decriminalization now.”
A spokesperson for campaign group Level Up urged reform of the way the justice system treated mothers in general.
“Like thousands of mothers in Britain, Carla was sent to prison and separated from her children for something that should never have put her there.
“This case must bring renewed calls to fight the criminalization of abortion — and of women and mothers more broadly. The judge said that Carla needed ‘compassion not punishment’ and we believe this sentiment should be extended more broadly to all mothers in the justice system.”