Woman jailed for taking abortion pill after UK legal limit will be released from prison

Source: CNN

Woman jailed for taking abortion pill after UK legal limit will be released from prison

By Eve Brennan, Sana Noor Haq and Niamh Kennedy, CNN
Published 1:26 PM EDT, Tue July 18, 2023

London (CNN) — A British woman jailed under Victorian-era legislation for terminating her pregnancy after the United Kingdom’s legal limit has won her appeal and will be released from prison, in a case that reignited the campaign to decriminalize abortion in the country.

A judge in England’s Court of Appeal on Tuesday reduced the sentence of Carla Foster, a 45-year-old mother-of three, ordering that she should be released immediately from prison and serve a suspended sentence instead, according to the UK’s PA Media news agency.

In June, the Crown Court in Stoke-on-Trent, central England, gave Foster a 28-month prison sentence after she admitted using medication to terminate a pregnancy during a Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant.

The original sentence required her to serve 14 months of her sentence in prison, sparking outrage from lawmakers and abortion rights campaigners alike.

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/18/uk/woman-jailed-abortion-pill-wins-appeal-intl-gbr/index.html