A British woman who killed her nearly full-term unborn baby with abortion pills will be released from prison after an appeals court reduced her sentence.
Carla Foster, 45, of Staffordshire, England, was supposed to spend 28 months in jail after she admitted to lying about how far along she was in her pregnancy when she bought abortion pills through the mail. Foster claimed to be about seven weeks pregnant, but she really was about 33 weeks pregnant when she took the abortion pills and killed her viable, late-term baby girl, Lily. Abortions are legal up to 24 weeks in England.
On Tuesday, however, the London Court of Appeal agreed to reduce Foster’s sentence to 14 months suspended, as well as 50 days of community service, AFP reports. As a result, Foster will be released from prison soon.
“This is a very sad case … It is a case that calls for compassion, not punishment,” Judge Victoria Sharp commented.
Foster’s lawyer, barrister Barry White, told the appeals court that she struggled with mental health problems and the COVID-19 lockdowns made her anxiety worse, the BBC reports.
White also argued that the sentence hurt Foster’s born children because the prison did not allow her to communicate with them. He also pointed out that she cooperated with police and admitted to what she did.
REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.
However, Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Robert Price argued against the reduced sentence, saying Foster’s punishment was not “manifestly excessive” and the judge “correctly made allowances for mitigating factors in this unusually sensitive case,” according to the report.
In May 2020, Foster used the British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s “pills by post” to buy abortion drugs through the mail during the COVID-19 lockdown. According to court testimony, Foster recently had moved back in with her ex-partner but she was pregnant by another man, the BBC reports.
She was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant, but, during the brief phone consultation with BPAS, she claimed to be only about seven weeks. Abortion pills are supposed to be used only up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
On the evening of May 11, 2020, after taking the abortion pills, she gave birth to her daughter, Lily; the baby girl was stillborn. An autopsy later confirmed that Lily was about eight months along and there was no sign of disease or trauma, suggesting the abortion drugs were what killed her.
Foster’s case has stirred up abortion debate in England, and radical abortion activists are calling on Parliament to legalize abortions for any reason up to birth.
After the appeals court ruled Tuesday, BPAS chief executive Clare Murphy said Foster’s original sentence was “cruel” and abortions should be fully decriminalized.
“The court of appeal has today recognized that this cruel, antiquated law does not reflect the values of society today,” Murphy said. “Now is the time to reform abortion law so that no more women are unjustly criminalized for taking desperate actions at a desperate time in their lives.”
But had Foster prematurely given birth to Lily at the exact same time and then killed her by another method, the situation would be treated differently. Legalized abortion has warped society into thinking killing a child is ok as long as the child is still in the womb.
Meanwhile, pointing to cases like Lily’s and others, pro-life leaders are calling on the government to reverse its recent decision allowing mail-order abortion drugs.
“Rather than take responsibility for sending out abortion pills 22 weeks beyond the legal limit for at-home abortions and risking the health of the mother as well as her unborn child, … BPAS is now cynically using this woman’s tragic experience of using its abortion service to lobby the Government and MPs to fully ‘decriminalise’ abortion,” Right to Life UK responded.
Baby Lily could be alive today if her mother had had an ultrasound or a physical examination, which used to be required before receiving abortion drugs, the pro-life organization continued.
“At at least 32 weeks or around eight months gestation, Baby Lily was a fully formed human child. If her mother had been given an in-person appointment by BPAS, she would still be alive,” organization spokesperson Catherine Robinson said.
