The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
A 22 year-old British woman has formally been found not guilty of an illegal at-home abortion after prosecutors dropped their case due to “evidential difficulties”. Bethany Cox was under investigation for three years before appearing in Teesside Crown Court last summer, where she pleaded not guilty to procuring drugs for an illegal abortion during the pandemic. She was due to face a seven-day trial starting next week. Nicholas Lumley KC, the barrister representing Cox, said it was “an extraordinary state of affairs” and that his client had been interviewed by police in the “throes of grief”. The charges fell under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, described as “cruel and outdated” by campaigners, which makes it an offence for a woman to unlawfully procure her own abortion in England and Wales. Six women have appeared in an English court in the last 12 months for illegally ending their pregnancies, with two women scheduled to face trial later this year.