Choice Ireland

Irish Medical News, 16th November 2009 - by Danielle Barron
 
Earlier this year, it was reported that health workers have detected an increase in the number of asylum seekers resorting to illegal abortions in Ireland.
 
A HSE source who worked with females in asylum centres confirmed that a number of women have presented over the past year with partially-aborted foetuses.
 
According to figures from the Department of Justice, the number of asylum seekers recorded as travelling abroad for abortions has dropped from 33 in 2003 and 22 in 2005 to just one in 2008, and none at all this year.
 
“Asylum-seeker women are the same as other women in that they have unplanned pregnancies and foetal abnormalities,” commented Mr Niall Behan, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA).
 
In 2005, the agency also expressed their concern at what they said was the re-emergence of illegal abortions, with the problem not having been reported in Ireland since the 1950s. This appeared to be due to the wide availability of herbal and medical pills bought over the Internet that claim to induce abortion, said Mr Behan.
 
“Internet pills or herbal remedies, while not common, seem to be known as the way around this. To buy these things over the Internet costs €70, and it’s much more in the reach of these women than the €1,000 it costs to travel to England.”