To play devil's advocate, though, there are women (again, the absolute outliers) who do deliberately harm or kill their children. Not necessarily because of dire circumstances, and sometimes dire circumstances just aren't a reasonable mitigation to the level of harm caused. Reading between the lines of the Judge's determination, the woman had been contemplating termination for many months and knew how far along she was. She lied to the paramedics and sent them away while she was in labour; they left not knowing she was pregnant and there would have been a chance to save the baby. I'm also left wondering who was there when all of this was happening: were her children witness to this? I am painfully aware of the emotional turmoil involved in making that decision and I fully support any woman's choice to end a pregnancy, but there has to be a cut-off point. Terminating a pregnancy at 8-months isn't really any different to the very sad cases of women who kill their newborns and we rightly expect them to receive a custodial sentence, irrespective of the trauma they may have experienced.
I think that telemedicine for abortions, irrespective of this situation, is a good thing and improves access to abortions for women who are vulnerable, frightened off by the anti-choice loons protesting outside gynae clinics, experiencing DV or HBV for example. I don't think we can say that the NHS was negligent when it's been proven that this woman made a deliberate choice to use drugs outwith the medical guidance (she told them she was 7 weeks along). That would be the same as the NHS being negligent every time someone uses prescribed drugs to kill themselves or Asda being sued for selling alcohol to people with alcohol dependence. At some point, personal responsibility needs to kick in.
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