The Northern Ireland Department of Health has warned that women “are at risk” from DIY home abortion in response to anti-life group Alliance for Choice launching an online “self-managed abortion” course on the International Day of Safe Abortion.
The NI Department of Health warning was made in response to an online course organised by the anti-life Alliance for Choice instructing on “self-managed abortion”.
The online course says that it will help women “learn all about the process of self-managed abortion with pills, how to look after yourself or help someone else using the medication”.
However, the NI Department of Health stated that “women are at risk if they access unregulated abortion services.
“The Department’s view is that services should be properly delivered through direct medical supervision within the health and social care system.”
The dangers of DIY home abortion
In July, SPUC reported on the dangers of medical abortion when a leaked NHS email revealed that two women had died after having taken abortion pills in England.
Other incidents related to medical abortion, and to the “pills in the post” scheme in particular, included ruptured ectopic pregnancies, “major resuscitations for major haemorrhage” and “the delivery of infants up to 30 weeks gestation”.
SPUC’s Alithea Williams said: “Two women are dead after taking abortion pills, whether or not in their case they visited a clinic. And tragedies arising from the pills through the post scheme include a baby who may have been aborted alive and then killed. Women are taking abortion pills whose unborn babies are well past the 10-week limit for chemical abortions.
“This madness has got to stop now. There is ample evidence that abortion pills are far from safe and simple.”
Pills by post
On 30 March 2020, The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care approved two temporary measures in England, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to allow women to self-administer medical (chemical) abortions at home, without meeting with a medical professional in person.
But DIY abortions put women at greater risk of physical and psychological harm as well as facilitating coercion by abusive men. Abortion drugs could be obtained under false pretences. DIY abortions will lead to greater loss of unborn human life.
SPUC has demanded that the DIY abortion regime be withdrawn immediately.
Abortion pills in Northern Ireland
The current law in Northern Ireland states that the first of two abortion pills must still be taken under in-person medical supervision.
Taking both abortion pills at home is illegal in Northern Ireland.
For more information, and to TAKE ACTION against DIY abortion in England and Scotland, please click here.