A 21-year-old woman was today handed a suspended sentence for buying and using miscarriage-inducing drugs on the internet.
The woman’s barrister noted that if her client lived in any other area of the UK, she would “not have found herself before the courts.”
The woman used to types of drugs to induce a miscarriage on July 12, 2014. A male foetus was later discovered in the bin of a house she shared with two other people.
In court today, the woman pleaded guilty to two charges - namely procuring her own abortion by using a poison, and of supplying a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.
Judge David McFarland handed the woman a three-moth prison sentence, suspended for two years.
According to the
Belfast Telegraph, Crown prosecutor Kate McKay said that police were called to the woman’s house July 20, 2014, following a call from the woman’s roommates.
Then 19, the woman told her two housemates that she was pregnant but that she was trying to raise the money to travel to England for a termination.
Unable to raise the money, the woman purchased two pills on the internet.
Defence barrister Paul Bacon said his client's prosecution highlighted the difference in legislation between here and the rest of the UK.
At the time of the incident, Mr Bacon described the woman as feeling "isolated and trapped ... with no-one to turn to."
