UK Woman Jailed For Taking Abortion Pills After Legal Limit
13 Jun 2023
A UK woman has been jailed for 28 months for getting an abortion after the legal limit.
Mother-of-three, Carla Foster, 44, was handed the headline making sentence by a judge in Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in central England on Monday.
She plead guilty to dispensing drugs or using instruments to obtain an abortion and will serve 14 months in custody and the remainder on license after her release.
The news has seen calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws. Foster was sentenced under the Offences Against the Person Act which dates back to 1861.
At the forefront of the calls is Caroline Nokes, the Conservative chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, who called the abortion legislation “very out of date”.
“This is not something that has been debated in any great detail for many years now,” she said.
“And cases like this, although are tragic and thankfully very rare, throw into sharp relief that we are relying on legislation that is very out of date. It makes a case for parliament to start looking at this issue in detail.”