Carla Foster's case isn't a miscarriage of justice

What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown up by the grim case of Carla Foster, the mother who’s been jailed for 28 months (in practice, it’ll be half that) for inducing an abortion outside the legal limit using pills at home. Her foetus – or baby, as most of us would say – was 32 to 34 weeks old. That’s way past the stage of development where neonates who are wanted can survive.

The judge’s summing up was, in this case, lapidary. Justice Edward Pepperall makes clear that the evidence shows that Foster knew she was far more advanced in her pregnancy than the legal limit for an abortion in general, and a lot more advanced than the ten-week limit for the prescription of abortion drugs by telephone. She pretended to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service that she was less than two months pregnant; and because, as a result of Covid, abortion drugs could be provided without visiting a clinic, she was able to take mifepristone and misoprostol at home, with the result that Lily was stillborn.