The Marie Stopes clinic, a British abortion provider has suspended surgical abortions for girls under the age of 18 and vulnerable women amid health and safety concerns.

These closure is effective immediately at its Norwich centre although other centres are operating as usual. The halting of services at the Norwich branch comes after health inspectors from the Care Quality Commission in the United Kingdom raised patient safety concerns. The suspensions of terminations under general anaesthetic and conscious sedation at the Norwich branch will mean that 250 women will have to go elsewhere to seek a termination. In a statement, Marie Stopes International said

“We are working urgently with the CQC on these areas and intend to regain full assurance within a few days. We’d like to reassure people that our other services remain unaffected. Each year 70,000 women are treated within our centres, and our clinical outcomes to outperform the national average”

This news comes at a time when two Irish women are live tweeting their journey to England to have an abortion directly to Taoiseach Enda Kenny. We’ve been keeping up with the women’s progress to date, in an earlier article and you can follow their progress on Twitter using #TwoWomen Travel. The women have currently arrived at their destination and have been travelling since 5am this morning. They are now 10 hours into their journey and are reporting severe exhaustion. https://twitter.com/TwoWomenTravel/status/766961443594010624 They ask Enda Kenny where he is watching the Olympics from today... https://twitter.com/TwoWomenTravel/status/766962176854753280 https://twitter.com/TwoWomenTravel/status/766962924447469568 https://twitter.com/TwoWomenTravel/status/766964619307016192 The support for these two brave women has so far been amazing. https://twitter.com/WEP_UK/status/766940983053455360 https://twitter.com/marybuckley549/status/766992408332660736 https://twitter.com/Karenwq4/status/766989222679044096 The British newspaper The Guardian are also covering the story highlighting the fact that as much as the Irish Government want to brush this story under the carpet, they can't because abortion is a reality for 14 Irish women a day. Wake up people. Just because abortion is illegal in this country does not stop it from happening. We are only pushing our problems onto other countries. Our thoughts are with all the Irish women forced abroad for abortions today and everyday.