In My View: Harriet Harman, MP for Camberwell & Peckham

No woman should be jailed for procuring her own abortion.

Yet in the case of Carla Foster that is exactly what happened.

Ms Foster was charged for inducing a late-term abortion in breach of an archaic 19th century law and sentenced to 14 months in prison.

This meant that a woman in such desperation she aborted her baby was punished by being sent to prison and separated from her three young children, one of whom has special needs.

This was a cruel sentence. But she is not the only one.

In the last 10 years there has been an increase in the number of women investigated and prosecuted for abortions, and there are currently at least two women who will soon be in court charged with the same offence.

Ms Foster appealed her sentence and, saying that she needed compassion rather than punishment, the Court of Appeal cut her sentence in half and suspended it, meaning she was immediately released from prison.

But she’d already faced separation from her children and while it’s welcome that the Court of Appeal made this judgment in her case, it will not prevent other women being sent to prison as it did not change the substantive law or set a precedent for future cases.

Parliament needs to change the law to decriminalise abortion, bringing England and Wales in line with Northern Ireland. But there are also actions that can be taken immediately to ensure that no woman is ever again sent to prison for procuring her own abortion.

We must end unjust prosecutions of vulnerable women in the first place.

When the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) makes a decision on whether to charge someone with a crime, they consider two factors: the weight of evidence and the public interest test.

It is very rarely, if ever, in the public interest to imprison a woman for carrying out an abortion. The CPS can issue guidance clarifying circumstances in which a prosecution is not in the public interest.

It already has guidance in cases of encouraging or assisting suicide, which outline compassionate reasons why it could be considered not in the public interest to prosecute someone.

It should do the same for women accused of procuring their own abortions.

I have written to the director of public prosecutions, Max Hill, asking him to publish guidance for prosecutors in cases such as Ms Foster’s.

And we must ensure that in the meantime, in cases where a woman is convicted under the current laws, she does not receive a jail sentence.

When sentencing Ms Foster, the absence of sentencing guidelines made the court feel that they had no option but to sentence her to imprisonment.

In the absence of relevant guidelines the judge could only base his sentence on the “General Guideline” issued by the Sentencing Council, which was not appropriate for a case such as this.

The Sentencing Council has the power to draft new guidelines after identifying offences that lack guidelines.

I have written to the Sentencing Council with my own draft sentencing guidelines.

But above all we need a change in law so that rules on abortion are dealt with by the regulation of the dispensing of medicines and procedures by medical professionals, not criminal law.

Giving women like Ms Foster a jail sentence does not make society safer or fairer.