Woman jailed for illegal abortion at 34 weeks. Thoughts?

In 2021, 43000 babies were born in England & Wales between 32 and 36 weeks. I'm calling that viable.

 

I don’t think it should shorten the sentence but I’m pleased that it has worked out that way for them.

 

"From a clinical perspective, a viable pregnancy is one in which the baby can be born and have a reasonable chance of survival. By contrast, a nonviable pregnancy is one in which the fetus or baby has no chance of being born alive."

 

Maybe not you but quite a few people have literally said that she shouldn't be locked up because she has children. Children who she killed the sister of simply to hide the fact that she'd slept with another man. There could actually be an argument that if she was willing to do that to me child to protect her reputation is it actually safe for the other kids to be with her?

 

My niece was born at 31 weeks

 

I don’t want to do all this again but did she do it simply to protect her reputation or because she didn’t want to carry, give birth to and then spend 18 years minimum bringing up the child?

 

To protect her reputation. She was willing to have the child until the point that she got back together with her ex partner. At which point she googled things like how to hide a pregnancy. The partner didn't discover she was pregnant until she killed the child and had a stillbirth. I'd say that points towards her trying to save her reputation (from her partner). If it was simply that she didn't want the child then she had ample opportunity during the safe period before the birth became viable.

I'm actually not 100% sure how I feel about this anyway from a moral perspective regarding the actual act but I think that there had to be a punishment because she hadn't just had an abortion. She'd had one about 10 weeks after the baby became viable and then lied to the police about it this showing no remorse and I think there has been far too much focus on supposed misogyny which actually makes no sense when you consider the fact that that victim was a baby girl.

 

Wow! That’s quite a statement to make….

 

And came straight home, requiring no special care?

 

That's an irrelevant question as to my knowledge that would never happen. Prem babies are usually kept in until approx 2 weeks before their due date. Some have ongoing medical issues, tho at 34 weeks that would be unlikely as all organs are formed.
My son was born at 29 weeks, came home at 35 weeks, no medical issues, just kept in an incubator for observance for 6 weeks.
That meant he'd got into a routine and slept right thru every night. We were all lucky!

 

My daughter was born full term and couldn't come straight home. Not sure why requiring care is relevant. A pregnancy is deemed viable if the baby can be born and expected to survive.

And I've now got drawn into commenting on something I was adamant I was going to avoid further involvement with

 

It's an emotive subject.