A woman accused of taking abortion drugs at home during the first COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 in the United Kingdom has been found not guilty of committing a crime.
In June of 2020, Bethany Cox was said to have taken misoprostol (commonly used as the second of the two-drug abortion pill regimen) while at home, causing the death of her preborn child. Cox strongly denied it, insinuating that she had suffered a miscarriage. It is believed that Cox’s preborn child was beyond 22 weeks, and potentially beyond 28 weeks, based on the charges brought against Cox.
A human baby growing inside the womb. Age is about 7 months. (Getty Images)
There were two charges filed against Cox. The first stated: “On 06/07/2020 at Stockton, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by a wilful act, namely administering drugs to procure abortion, contrary to section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, caused the child to die before it had an existence independent of its mother.”
The second charge states: “Between 02/07/2020 and 07/07/2020 at Stockton, being a woman with child, unlawfully administered to yourself a poison or other noxious thing, with intent to procure your own miscarriage.”
Prosecutors dropped the charges, citing a lack of “key evidence” and arguing there was no chance of conviction. Her lawyer, Nicholas Lumley, told Teesside Crown Court in Middlesborough that the case should never have gone as far as it did to begin with.
“In the throes of grief, she was interviewed and gave an account telling the police what she had done,” he said. “She was under investigation for three years, then prosecuted, then at the 11th hour, when the court and defence highlighted evidential difficulties… the defence statement echoes what she told police three years earlier, the evidential difficulties have always been there. The prosecution now accepts what she said to the police must have been right. That is beyond regrettable.”
Judge Paul Watson, the recorder of Middlesbrough, said the court had “no choice” but to give a verdict of not guilty for Cox.
Even after the pandemic-related lockdowns were lifted, the abortion pill regimen remained available for women in the United Kingdom without medical supervision. Since 2019, there has been a 64% increase in abortion-related emergency calls and ambulance dispatches, and at least one ambulance trust felt it necessary to create fetal mannequins at different stages so staff could properly manage the increase in emergencies.
The UK’s abortion industry giant, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), seemingly was unbothered, saying the increase in emergencies were due to women’s “overreactions” to the pain and bleeding they have experienced when taking the abortion pill.
