Alicia was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2017, but ten years on from her startlingly brutal crime, she has been given ‘special leave’, temporarily departing the maximum security prison to attend IVF appointments.
It’s a decision that has shocked the nation. How could a convicted murderer, one who took a mother’s life, be given a “second chance at being a mother”?
And what on earth will happen if she is successful in falling pregnant while in jail, knowing that she has five more years of her sentence to serve?
This situation will proceed due to a Supreme Court ruling back in 2010.
Jacinta Allan, the premier of Victoria, said that the historical case provided a pathway for someone in Alicia’s circumstances to expand her family from jail.
The case in question was of Kimberley Castles, who was 45 when she was locked up for committing social security fraud, per Human Rights Law Centre.
Kimberley was just five months away from the cut-off for IVF (which is 46 in Australia), and had been doing IVF treatments before she was apprehended.
[S]he argued that she had the right under the 1896 Corrections Act, which states that prisoners have ‘access to reasonable medical care and treatment necessary for the preservation of health’.
Source: Murderer Alicia Schiller approved for IVF in prison.
The world has gone crazy