A couple who allegedly aborted their baby past the legal limit have been sentenced to community service and unpaid work for concealing the body of their stillborn baby in a rubbish bin.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that after “careful reflection” it had decided not to pursue the additional charge of illegal abortion as it was “not in the public interest”.
Sophie Harvey admitted to concealing the stillbirth of her child, though she denied that she aborted the baby while pregnant at 28 weeks and five days gestation.
The legal limit for abortion in England and Wales is 24 weeks, and 10 weeks for medical abortion, using pills, which may be taken at home.
While the abortion pills had been ordered before the stillbirth, the defence claimed that they arrived in the post after the stillbirth, and Harvey had no intention of using them past the legal limit. Harvey said that she and her boyfriend Elliot Benham had purchased abortion pills online.
She gave birth in her bathroom in Cirencester, Gloucestershire in 2018. The dead child was concealed in a towel and put in a household bin.
While the police later found that one of the pills was missing, Harvey said that this was because she wanted to ensure that the placenta had been evacuated, but she later decided against using the pill.
Harvey has been sentenced to 18 hours of community service, and Benham to 150 hours of unpaid work.
At sentencing, Judge Lawrie said that the couple exhibited “an absence of compassion and humanity” regarding the disposal of their baby.
“Disingenuous and ideologically driven”
SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has set a worrying and dangerous precedent that threatens de facto decriminalisation of abortion. By refusing to pursue an alleged crime, the CPS undermine a law put in place to protect the unborn and their mothers from harm.
“While it is wrong and illegal to abort a child over the legal limit, it is demonstrably dangerous for women to use abortion pills in late pregnancy, which is why the limit for at-home abortion using pills is set at 10 weeks.
“In this case, it appears that the CPS has prioritised abortion ideology over the safety of mothers and unborn children. Truth no longer seems to matter either. This is part of a broader attempt to bring about abortion up to birth, as we saw in the Carla Foster case.
“Political, medical and legal institutions are increasingly influenced by this extreme agenda, which has no support among ordinary British people who baulk at late-term abortion. To claim that such serious breaches of law are ‘not in the public interest’ is absurd, disingenuous and ideologically driven.”
Abortion law undermined
Carla Foster was found guilty of illegally procuring an abortion at 32-34 weeks by lying over the phone to an abortion provider. She was later released from prison after the Court of Appeal reduced her 28-month prison sentence to 14 months suspended.
During the first sentencing, Justice Pepperall condemned “inappropriate” attempts by the pro-abortion industry to influence the court, which was urged to pass a non-custodial sentence.
Government data shows that abortion pills have a complication rate of 3.3 per cent for women 13 to 19 weeks pregnant, rising to 4.8 per cent for abortions over 20 weeks.
MPs voted to make DIY abortion permanent in 2022, ignoring public opinion – 69 per cent of respondents to a consultation said that the scheme had a negative impact “with a particular regard to safety”. Women may now undertake DIY at-home abortions up to ten weeks gestation.
There were 252,122 abortions in England and Wales in 2022; 86% of these were medical abortions.
