Hannah Walton-Hughes

A mother of three has been jailed for over two years after taking abortion pills later than the UK limit, sparking outrage amongst MPs and campaigners. 

The mother had accessed the medication via the ‘pills by post’ scheme that was introduced in the UK during the pandemic, whereby abortion pills could be ordered following a remote consultation with your doctor. 

Currently, the law states that a female can abort using the abortion pill up until 10 weeks across England, Scotland and Wales. Then, between 10 and 24 weeks, the procedure must be carried out in a hospital. 

It is illegal to abort after 24 weeks in the UK, and the charged woman’s foetus was estimated to be between 32 and 34 weeks. 

UK Court Ruling Against Late Abortion Pill Use

Initially, the woman pleaded not guilty to the charge of child destruction. She later pleaded guilty under the Offences against the Person Act (1861). The judge has said that if she had initially pleaded guilty, the custodial sentence could have been suspended. 

The 44-year-old realised she was pregnant in 2019 and had organised a consultation with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) in May 2020. She later admitted to the police that she lied about the stage of her pregnancy in order to access the abortion pills. 

The court also took the woman’s Google searches into account, which included “Could I go to jail for aborting my baby at 30 weeks?”.

Despite the late termination, no evidence was found that the foetus had taken an independent breath.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Royal College of Midwives and other groups have signed a plea which was submitted to the judge, expressing concern that a conviction might deter other women from accessing tele-medical abortion services. However, the judge was critical of the letter and did not accept that the concerns expressed were viable.

“BPAS called the current law ‘archaic'”

The defence argued that instead of being imprisoned, the woman needed “family and support”. She has expressed ‘genuine remorse’ for her actions and claims that she still suffers from nightmares. 

She will serve the first part of her sentence in prison, and the other half under licence.

Advocacy for Abortion Pill Access

There has since been a great deal of campaigning to change the laws regarding abortion.

The BPAS called the current law “archaic” and expressed concern about the number of women and girls enduring the “trauma of lengthy police investigations”. The number of women and girls imprisoned under abortion laws has risen over the past three years, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory.  

 “No one deserves to be criminalised for seeking healthcare, which is a human right,” said Mundu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party.

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, says the current laws are based around “criminal sanctions,” rather than “healthcare considerations.” She believes that the failure to address this issue has had “very real modern-day implications.” Creasy stated it has never been more urgent for it to be a “formal human right” for women to access “safe, legal and local abortion”.

However, a spokesperson for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children expressed concern that the woman knew she was breaking the law when taking the pill, and described the case as “horrifying”. The society criticised home-available abortion pills and claimed that their availability was being used to “push for abortion up to birth”.

Abortion access remains a highly controversial issue, both nationally and globally.

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Featured image courtesy of Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash. No changes made to this image. Image license found here.

I am an aspiring political journalist, and am passionate about writing and reporting on local, national, and international news. Currently, I am a second year Undergraduate student studying English with Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. I am a regular contributor to the News, Features, Reviews and Entertainment sections of the University's magazine, Impact, where I also hold the position of Head of the Reviews section. I am a member of the News team at University Radio Nottingham, where I am a panelist on the weekly News and Political shows, as well as partaking in reporting. Previous work experience includes a week's placement at Your LocalLink Magazine in York, in addition to shadowing MP Jason McCartney in Parliament. See my LinkedIn page for more. Over lockdown, I appeared on BBC Radio York during York, discussing my Creative Writing.

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