A mother jailed for procuring her own miscarriage. Is that what we want in 21st-century Britain?
Gaby Hinsliff
Hell yes.
This is why we have this democracy thing, see? The peeps get to vote for the people who make the laws, those laws reflecting what the peeps want.
Given that I am feeling particularly evil this morning a siggestion – we send that woman a birthday card on the date that would have been for the next 70 years.
Good if she did.
And I bet she doesn’t, just special pleading to the court. I mean, who’s the real victim here?
nightmares in which she sees her dead child’s face
I understand this is quite common amongst murderers.
If a mother who kills should not go to jail because of the effect on her unkilled children, why should the same exemption from consequences not apply to a father who kills? Parricides are not spared jail because of being orphans.
If a law isn’t enforced there’s no point in having it. The Guardian should, given its stance on the issue, be railing against the law rather than its enforcement.
In writing the above, I’ve remembered that, of course, the point of much law is to give the appearance that the government is doing something.
This. 100%.
She can’t say she was ignorant about the law, because she lied about the extent of her pregnancy. Everything else is just narcissistic pleading because she got caught.
Zero sympathy.
This is how you turn abortion into a political issue. Get normal, sane people looking at MPs and going WTAF and wondering if maybe the pro-lifers are right.
Because I would switch sides if 34 weeks was normalised. I would be marching for it. It’s already heinous that pregnancies with Down’s Syndrome can be terminated after 24 weeks. And really, the upper limit should be 21, not 24 weeks.
Now that would be amusing. Create a fuss over this woman’s lies and a medical review comes back recommending much lower limits on abortion in line with current survivability of infants outside the womb.
That’d set the Grauniad henhouse clucking.
According to Caroline Noakes (Conservative), Stella Creasy (Labour) and the bbc (Wankers) the woman is the real victim here.
No doubt they would all concur with the vile American activist who said that a woman has every right to remove a parasite from her body right up to the date of birth.
Well? Isn’t that the logical end point of “My body, my choice”?
It’s also why we don’t entertain such black-and-white notions, preferring to find a balance between the rights of the mother and the needs of the child.
The more I look at this particular case, the more I think we’re getting it about right, which is what you’d want in such legislation.
JG: My feeling too. Yes, “feeling”, because this is one of those things that is difficult to rationalise to facts. Pregnancy development is one of those grey area things, it is a process over nine months, so it’s impossible to be black-and-white. At one point you have sperm+egg bumping into each other, at the other end a bundle of screaming snot. There is no point you can point to and say “there!” that is where bundle-of-cells turns into baby. It is a 280-day gradual process.
Which is also why I’m generally content that the cut-off point be around the 50% point. Yes, there’s no assertion that the developmental process is a straight line, but around the halfway point in time is the closest to a “feel” to be the “right” point – the remaining time to completetion is greater than the time committed so far. Like going to the shops and it starts raining. Do I go home, or press on? Or, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago on here, the biological process of miscarriage itself. The younger the woman the greater the chance of natually aborting and trying again, the older the woman the biology tips to might not have another chance, risk keeping this one going.
“My body, my choice” never seems to extend to the choice to not get pregnant in the first place.
Sure, but without the emotional guilt trip of “Ooopsy! I’m pregnant”, how many men would choose single and care-free over married with kids. This is especially true where all the leverage remains with the woman.
“There is no point you can point to and say “there!” that is where bundle-of-cells turns into baby. It is a 280-day gradual process.”
The idea of 24 weeks is foetal viability, which is not really a bad line: at what point is the baby not part of the mother but its own person, so mother no longer has a right to terminate. Of course, this does mean that we shouldn’t be aborting Down’s Syndrome children past that point. Not part of the mother, their own person. To abort a Down’s Syndrome child past 24 months is effectively the same thing as killing a 5 year old with Down’s Syndrome.
And it should be 21 weeks, or call it a round 20, because a child was born and lived at 21 weeks 5 days.
Another position is first trimester, and although that’s entirely arbitrary, if the point of an abortion law is to prevent women dying at the hands of backstreet abortionists, because that was the point, wasn’t it, then how much is that happening in France, Austria, Belgium, Germany that have 12 week limits? Weirdly, the pro-European Guardian doesn’t seem in favour with aligning on that.
She should have had a much longer sentence. Recently a 7-month pregnant woman was murdered by her boyfriend along with her unborn child. The feminists were (in that case rightly) complaining about how the boyfriend is not charged for two murders. Same thing
My body my choice. Indeed!
Now, where can I find the going rate for the kidney I want to sell?
There have been a few cases in the US where the abortionist erred & the baby was outside the woman’s body & still alive. The pro-abortion crowd supported snuffing it out, even though it no longer was an inconvenience for the woman.
Apparently if you pay for a dead baby you’re entitled to one.
Gaby Hinsliff is simply projecting her sense of entitlement onto this slut and the hapless dead baby.
She got caught because she
called an ambulance
the paramedics could tell the age of the foetus
one at least of the paramedics had some religious conviction / knowledge of the law.
She could count herself unlucky, while I wonder how many other abortions by post are also child destruction under the law.
Part of the argument against jailing her is that she has three other children. Reducing someone’s sentence because they’re irresponsible about contraception is not a good route to go down. Also, where is/are the father(s) and why aren’t they looking after the kids?
Probably because they were refused custody. Some women just use kids as a cash cow for child support. Awful, I know, but the truth.
A foetus isn’t viable at 24 weeks. In my experience they aren’t able to support themselves independently until at least 16 years; sometimes not until 25. Therefore I support a parent’s right to kill their own children at any age. Would make for great soap opera plots.
‘ And really, the upper limit should be 21, not 24 weeks.’
(UK) Only 1% of abortions are above 20 weeks, 86% below 9 weeks, 95% below 14 weeks.
John B,
So? Numbers are irrelevant to whether something is moral or not. Also, if the point of 24 weeks is foetal viability then it’s wrong and should be corrected OR we say that it’s entirely arbitary.
She wanted an abortion because she was shagging 2 different blokes and didn’t,t know who the father was.
JG – The more I look at this particular case, the more I think we’re getting it about right, which is what you’d want in such legislation.
I’m not convinced we’re getting it right, on account of the fact that our nation is dying and yet we annually throw out nearly quarter of a million unborn babbies as medical waste.
YMMV.
It’s no surprise that the grauniad is in favour of killing babies. Socialists (of both the international and national varieties) have been in favour of eugenics since the theory was developed in the late 19th century. The evil fabian society heavily promoted it.
Also, the definition of a miscarriage is “the spontaneous or unplanned expulsion of a fetus from the womb before it is able to survive independently.”
This is quite clearly not a miscarriage as a) it was planned and b) would (very likely have been able to survive independently”
We really need to stop the left taking over our language(s)
This particular case was not at the difficult margins where moral folks can disagree sincerely but honorably.
This was nothing whatsoever to do with viability or choice – at 32 weeks this was simply infanticide so the evil bitch can rot in jail before rotting in hell.
I note the story about reviewing the law in light of this case has vanished from the BBC website. Perhaps, and I can only dream, they were inundated with criticism and actually listened for once.
Geoffers
The ubiquitous Charlotte Proudman was on morning tv. I think you can probably guess what her considered legal opinion was.
our nation is dying and yet we annually throw out nearly quarter of a million unborn babbies as medical waste.
P’raps because you’re not producing women who want to bring up children & men would help them do so?
The abortions are a symptom, not the cause.