A woman in the UK has been sentenced to 28 months in jail for using mail-order abortion drugs after the legal limit of 24 weeks pregnant.
The 44-year-old woman, who we will not name, was already a mum of three at the time of the abortion.
According to an article in The Guardian, the woman misled the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) during a telephone consultation in May 2020 by saying she was below the 10-week cutoff.
She was sent the termination medication as part of BPAS "pills by post" scheme that was set up as an emergency response to deal with unwanted pregnancies under 10 weeks during Covid. Doctors have since concluded that the foetus was from 32 to 34 weeks gestation at the time of termination.
She was sentenced under an 1861 law in the UK that was not repealed with the 1967 Abortion Act, meaning that women still face life imprisonment in the UK for inducing abortion after 24 weeks. In 2019, Northern Ireland revoked the 1861 statute, replacing it with a human rights-based framework that instead helps women access appropriate medical care.
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