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A further 520 women did not state their country of residence.
Note: The figure of 3, 265 does not include:
- Women who travelled to other jurisdictions
- Women who travelled from Ireland but gave UK addresses
- Women who procured abortion pills online (approx. 3 women a day take abortion pills in Ireland which they procured online)
- NI Stats – In 2016, 724 women from NI had abortions in the UK
Source: UK Dept. of Health Report ‘Abortion Statistics England and Wales 2016’
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A further 231 women did not state their country of residence.
Note: The figure of 3, 451 does not include:
- Women who travelled to other jurisdictions
- Women who travelled from Ireland but gave UK addresses
- Women who procured abortion pills online
- NI Stats – In 2015, 833 women from NI had abortions in the UK
Source: UK Dept. of Health Report ‘Abortion Statistics England and Wales 2015’
In Ireland…
- Abortion is banned except where a woman’s life is in immediate danger
- Abortion is not permitted where a woman’s health is affected, so women only have a qualified right to healthcare while pregnant.
- Ireland’s abortion law criminalises girls, women and medical professionals.
- Abortion is not permitted in cases of rape or incest.
- Where fatal foetal abnormalities are detected, women are forced to continue their pregnancy to full-term.
- Global research shows that restrictive abortion regimes do not stop abortions from happening. Women have to travel abroad, obtain the abortion pill or seek out unsafe and risky abortions.
- Approximately 4,000 women travel abroad for an abortion every year (mainly to the UK). Girls and women who are unable to travel abroad for financial or other reasons are discriminated against.
- Increasing numbers of women obtain the abortion pill online although medical abortion is prohibited and criminalised. As the importation of abortion pills remains illegal there are no records of how many abortions take place in Ireland using abortion pills. We do know however that in 2014, 1017 abortion pills were seized and in June 2016, 78 abortion pills were seized in just 1 week. These seizures by Customs and An Garda Síochána indicate the demand in Ireland for abortion pills.