LONDON: Anti-austerity alliance td Ruth Coppinger has called on customs to stop intercepting the delivery of abortion pills bound for Ireland.
Last year 1,017 such pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, were seized by customs – up from 438 in 2013.
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Coppinger said the state is “adding to the misery of women in crisis pregnancies by intercepting abortion pills they have ordered and paid for online”.
A spokesperson for the Health Products Regulatory Authority said each of the 60 importations seized last year would have included a number of multi-tablet packets.
“The figures show the lengths women are being forced to go to in order to try to access an abortion,” Coppinger stated, adding that these figures don’t include the women who “travel abroad to have an abortion, or who access abortion pills through friends or relatives in the north”.
Coppinger said a bill brought forward by herself and Joe Higgins to repeal the 8th Amendment, due to be debated on 8 May, will be “Labour’s third chance to end this hypocrisy”.
Back in October, the Socialist Party TD and several other pro-choice activists brought packets of abortion pills to Dublin via Belfast, where they are legal.
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When responding to a parliamentary question asked by Coppinger on the issue, junior health minister Kathleen Lynch said there are “significant public health concerns associated with the purchase of prescription medicines over the internet”.
