You can buy pretty much anything online these days: zombie survival kits, Justin Timberlake’s french toast, bacon-flavoured floss. However, little did we think there'd be a demand to illegally buy abortion pills at the click of a button.
According to BBC's Victoria Derbyshire, women in England are illegally taking abortion pills bought over the internet because of difficulty attending clinic appointments.
In England, women must take the pill at a hospital or clinic, before travelling home for the abortion process to begin (which can start within 30 minutes). But if women don't live close enough to a clinic, the process of the termination can start while they're on their way home.
The BBC spoke to one woman, Claudia Craig, whose symptoms began within minutes of getting into a taxi on the way home from the clinic.
"I started to feel really unwell and extremely nauseous," she told the BBC. "I was getting that feeling in my chest like I was about to throw up."
Not long after she got home, Claudia began "retching and being very unwell on the bathroom floor". If she lived any further away, she said, "all those symptoms would have been happening on the floor of the taxi."
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So it comes as no surprise that women are buying the pills illegally online so they can take them from the comfort of their own home. Over the past three years, drug enforcement officers had seized almost 10,000 sets of abortion pills on their way to addresses in Britain, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told the television programme.
The news comes months after Scotland and Wales both recently changed the law to allow women to take the pill at home.
Women having what is known as an early medical abortion (which takes place in the first nine weeks of pregnancy) are required to take two types of tablet, 24 to 48 hours apart. This means they must attend the same clinic twice for each tablet.
Under the 1967 Abortion Act, terminations can be carried out only on licensed premises.
However, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has now called on England's Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, to change the legislation so that women have the option to take the second pill at home.
RCOG's president, Prof Leslie Regan said: "We know that when women are allowed to take the second tablet at home that it is safe, it's highly effective and they much, much prefer it."
The World Health Organisation recommends home use of the abortion pill and many experts believe current legislation that prohibits at-home taking of the second abortion pill is putting women at risk due to the dangers associated with buying pills online.
The BBC reports hospitals and clinics in England are now allowing women to take both types of pill on the same day - even though this increases the risk of complications.
Kate Guthrie works for service Women on Web, which helps women who want to buy the tablets online, and told the programme that 2,212 women had contacted her asking for abortion pills in the past 18 months.
Their motives for buying the pills online include difficultly in traveling to clinics while caring for children and living hundreds of miles away.
According to NHS Lothian, eight out of 10 women are now choosing to take the pill at home since laws changed in Scotland in October 2017.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it was "currently monitoring the proceedings in Scotland closely".
"We have a tough regulator in place to ensure the care women receive is safe and of the highest quality."
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
