Thousands of protesters on Saturday marched through London demanding that abortion be decriminalised after a woman was handed a 28-month jail sentence for a late abortion.
The marchers chanted “Free Carla Foster” and waved signs reading “abortion is healthcare” and “policing our bodies is the real crime”.
Foster, 44, who has three children, was jailed on Monday and must serve 14 months of the sentence in custody.
She had admitted illegally procuring her own abortion when she was between 32 and 34 weeks’ pregnant by telling an abortion counsellor she was around seven weeks’ pregnant — well within the legal limit.
Opposition Labour Party MP Stella Creasy told the protesters the case showed current legislation was no longer “fit for purpose”.
“…we now find a mum of three children, one of whom has special education needs, in prison,” she said.
“Whose interests does that serve, to keep punishing this woman?”
She said there had been “67 legal prosecutions of women in the past 10 years under the offences against the person act of 1861”.
The 162-year-old law banning abortion was amended in 1967, legalising abortion with an authorised provider up to 28 weeks, which was later lowered to 24 weeks in 1991.
There are very limited circumstances that would allow an abortion after this point in England, Scotland and Wales, such as if the mother’s life is at risk or if the child would be born with a severe disability.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) sent Foster the abortion-causing drugs in the post in May 2020 following a phone consultation due to the pandemic lockdown.
After receiving the drugs, she gave birth, although the child was pronounced dead following a call to emergency services.
BPAS chief executive Clare Murphy this week said they were “shocked and appalled” by the sentence and called the 19th century law used to prosecute her and others the “harshest penalty in the world”.
“There has never been a clearer mandate for parliamentary action, and the need has never been so urgent,” she said.
“Over the last three years, there has been an increase in the numbers of women and girls facing the trauma of lengthy police investigations and threatened with up to life imprisonment under our archaic abortion law,” she added.