I watched the repeal of Roe vs Wade last year in wide-eyed horror as a woman’s right to an abortion in the United States vanished overnight. My friends in the US were in pieces — there was heartbreak and disbelief as they watched the erosion of their human rights in real time. I sent them my commiserations and listened to their fears. It was awful but this was a country which voted for Donald Trump and believes in the right to bear arms while children are slaughtered in classrooms on a monthly basis. This is a deep-set American culture war, not a British one, I thought.
But then came the upsetting case of Carla Foster over here. The vulnerable mother-of-three was jailed for two years for illegally obtaining abortion pills when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant. The circumstances were desperately sad: the 44-year-old had been at a loss, having moved back in with an ex-partner at the beginning of lockdown while carrying another man’s baby. Her anxiety was sky-high and her mental health was unstable. She has said she is haunted by her dead child’s face. In prison she wasn’t allowed any contact with her three children, one of whom is autistic. It’s harrowing stuff. Thankfully, sense eventually prevailed, her sentence was reduced and she was released. The Court of Appeal judge stated that Foster needed “compassion not punishment.” Yet, this woman will always have a criminal record.
