Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
All GPs would regard the need to terminate a pregnancy as a failure of family planning.
IT’S ESTIMATED THAT around 1,500 abortion pills are used on the island of Ireland each year, or around 5 pills a day.
That figure is based on a study conducted on women in Northern Ireland and the Republic, the number of seizures of abortion pills, and the number of pills ordered by women from online providers.
In the same survey, of the 1,000 women on the island of Ireland who bought abortion pills online, around 10% reported experiencing side effects after taking the medication.
(To be clear, these are pills that are illegal in Ireland because of our abortion laws, but are considered medically safe. One of the pills, misoprostol is listed on the World Health Organisation’s list of Essential Medicines.)
In that same group, 0.7% required a blood transfusion, 2.6% required antibiotics, and overall 9.3% experienced symptoms potentially requiring medical attention. There were no deaths.
In cases where women have taken abortion pills to end their pregnancy and experience side effects, there’s a danger that they will be slow to report those problems.
In its submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment, the Irish College of General Practitioners, the organisation said:
The ICGP understands that an increasing proportion of women will purchase online hormonal abortifacient medications.
In these instances, it may or may not become known to their GP in subsequent consultations.
“There is clearly increased use of ‘illegal abortifacients’ both from anecdotal evidence from GPs, objective measures such as customs seizures, and a recent paper which suggests that 5,560 women requested abortion pills between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2015.”
It also said that “women who use abortion pills ordered online may fear presenting to
Irish health services if they develop problems”.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, two GPs shared their experiences of treating women who had taken abortion pills, saying that despite the pills being illegal, the process from a medical point of view was straightforward.
“The medical part is simple,” said Dr Brendan O’Shea, who runs a large practice in Co Kildare and has been practicing medicine for 30 years.
“From a medical perspective, [our aim is] to understand what’s happened.
“We do a clinical evaluation of the severity of the pain, check pulse and blood pressure, see if there’s a real active risk of hemorrhage or not, and you do all that in 10 minutes.”
When asked whether it’s easy to evaluate this, as women might underplay symptoms or be reluctant to share them given they’ve taken a medicine that’s illegal in Ireland, Dr O’Shea was clear:
“As a GP, part of our skills set is to deal with uncertainty – we know our patient very well, so we’ve a greater probability of getting relevant details than a hospital’s emergency department.”
Dublin-based GP Dr Mark Murphy said that the abortion pill is “very effective”, so medical intervention after the pill is taken is only needed in “unusual circumstances”.
“For most women it just works and that’s it,” he said.
In cases where there are side effects or complications of some kind, Murphy said that women “may not go to their GP” and instead “might go directly to the emergency department”.
Dr Murphy, who is part of the Together for Yes campaign, says that people are generally comfortable telling their GP about their health concerns because a GP would most likely be familiar with their patients’ medical history.
They’d be more nervous telling a doctor they don’t know. Oftentimes [at an emergency department] they might say they’re miscarrying. That’s clearly not ideal.
Abortion pills can be taken up to 10-12 weeks of the pregnancy, meaning that in the event of a ‘repeal’ vote in the upcoming referendum, the majority of terminations would be carried out through taking a pill.
Although it’s difficult to discern exactly how many abortion pills are ordered online by women in Ireland each year, it’s considered that that number is increasing.
“The number of people travelling to the UK for terminations is in decline, and although this is partly linked to an increase in contraception-use, it’s also linked to an increase in the use of abortion pills in Ireland,” Murphy says.
O’Shea says on the subject of abortion, all GPs would view the need for a pregnancy termination as “a failure of family planning”.
The view that the Eighth Amendment reduces that is simply not the case.
He says that what will reduce the rate of abortions and unplanned pregnancies in the country is more effective messages on contraception.
“The programme of legislation is definitely part of the answer to that question, but this time round we need to be more forward-looking, need to increase family planning services, and remove the remaining barriers, such as cost.”
We seem to be obsessed with legal experts, scientists, gynecologists, hospitals, and are making people take frightful risks with their own sexuality.
This is like the seatbelt issue – we sorted seatbelts when we started to place responsibility on dangerous drivers. Hundreds of thousands engage in sexual activity, you have the service supply but you also need a stronger public service campaign.
In response to the calls for a more robust contraception and sexual education campaign, the Department of Health directed us to a speech by Minister Simon Harris.
In it, he announced that the country’s National Sexual Health Strategy 2015-2020 would be updated based on the recommendations of the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment’s ancillary recommendations.
The three-year programme will include:
He also pledged to increase the distribution of condoms and information about safer sex behaviours.
The government recently announced it would review sexual education at primary and secondary level; and also that it would look at making the morning after pill free of charge (although this ran into complications this week).
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
The right to travel for an abortion and the right to information about having an abortion are both enshrined in our constitution as is, paradoxically, the right to life of the foetus in the womb. Thousands of women travel abroad for abortions every year and 5 women a day use an abortion pill. Basically you have a right to abortion once you don’t have it in ireland!! The 8th is a farce and not fit for purpose. Not all situations ate the same, repeal the 8th and bring in appropriate legislation.
I’d like to know, who is putting up the posters around Dublin with the 1 in 5 pregnancies in England are aborted, which is a statistic I don’t believe. I’ve seen a number of these being put up in my area, every vehicle is a Northern Ireland registration? Are they just contracted or are the pro life in the north putting up posters here?
@Berny Heffernan: the save the 8th group..
@Berny Heffernan: there are even worse and more inaccurate posters in my area saying that Repeal want abortion up to the moment of birth and showing 6 month old foetuses.
The 1 in 5 figure is not an overall average figure in the UK.
Also, abortion is never performed on a baby. It is performed at foetal stage.
One can only hope that these extremist posters hysterically referring to “Licence to Kill” will just alienate sensible and balanced people. The posters seemed aimed at preaching to those who are already totally pro life.
@Berny Heffernan: me too – and ironically, having had to explain to my primary school-going children that no one is out to ‘kill babies’, I’ve managed to believe even more strongly myself that these ‘pro-lifers’ are lying, narrow-minded, zealots….
@Berny Heffernan: Pro-lie maths. It’s actually about 17 per 1000 women of child-bearing age (15-44) in the UK have abortions.
@Berny Heffernan: I don’t understand why a British statistic would apply here. We were told that legalising divorce in Ireland would mean that marriage breakdowns would go through the roof and that father’s wouldn’t see their kids. Ireland has one of the lowest divorce rates in the world. We were told that same sex marriage referendum was all about surrogacy and that gay men in particular would be travelling to india by the plane load, resulting in our footpaths being full of gay men pushing prams. Now we are told that we will have the most liberal abortion laws in Europe and that women will be swiped off the streets and forced to have an abortion, which they can have up until birth. Let’s repeal the 8th so that Irish women can be provided with care and compassion in their own country.
@Berny Heffernan: You can download the Statistics for England and Wales from the UK Department of Health and the Scottish statistics from the Scottish Institute of Statistics and Data. You will find that there is just under 200,000 abortions and just over 700,000 live births making a ‘per pregnancy’ abortion rate of just over 21% or slightly higher than 1 in 5. The statistics are also quoted on a ‘per head’ basis of just over 16 abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44. Both metrics are about 4 times higher than ROI and NI.
@Patrick Jackman:The statistics that ‘should’ only matter to us,is that around 4,5000 Irish women are ending their pregnancy every year..The statistics that 2,300 Irish women are “choosing” the surgical abortion’ over the ‘medical abortion’
81% of terminations are carried out before and during the 9th week of pregnancy
72% of UK women choose the medical abortion
29% of Irish women do -due to family/financial reasons
Give Irish women a choice.
@Berny Heffernan: Yeah, that’s lies. It’s quoted as from the ‘British Dept of Health’ or something like that. Not the NHS.
When you have to lie to get your point across, that’s when it loses all credibility.
#fakenews #repeal
@Gav Quinn: try gov.uk website for accurate national statistics for UK
@Gav Quinn: Those statistics are 100% verifiable as by law all UK abortions have to be reported to the UK Department of Health for England and Wales and its Scottish equivalent for Scotland.
“O’Shea says on the subject of abortion, all GPs would view the need for a pregnancy termination as “a failure of family planning”.”
This doctor is like the minister in not being capable of looking at the real impact of the referendum in terms of legal entitlements that are met elsewhere with severe punishments in all sections of society. They are trying to address a legal issue as a humane issue but it is still ending a life or taking away a life that that amounts to capital punishment for the crime of inconvenience.
@Gerald Kelleher: Do you think that use of the morning after pill (which is currently legal) should be a criminal offence with a capital punishment?
Explain your answer or you will not get any marks.
@Gerald Kelleher: I’m going to be deducting marks for missing punctuation and verbose, vauge, incomprehensible sentences
@Ron North: I see the Journal deleted your comment yesterday about me -
“Incidentally, I once know a guy who always spoke in the sort of vague riddles that you use in your comments. That guy turned out to be a pedophile, that’s not to say that you’re a pedo.”
Strange that the Journal did you a favour just as they allowed Fahey to call me a stalker but I shrug at these things as distractions from people on both sides of the pro-life vs pro-choice side where the referendum is a lot more than choice/no choice.
You went so low that I thought I wouldn’t see you again but such is the Journal.
@Gerald Kelleher: so do you think that a GP should report any woman who admits to using an abortion pill? Or do you think that, after the pregnancy has been terminated, a woman is better off talking to someone who can help her medically, without fearing persecution – and prosecution? It’s happening anyway. Surely it’s better to be compassionate and help the woman who is alive and needs help, than to worry about ‘justice’ for a non-sentient, non-viable, embryo that has already been terminated? I know what my choice would be.
@Ron North:
That would be an “I don’t know” answer from Gerald then.
@Ron North: I agree, where did that ministerial title end!!
@Gerald Kelleher: 0/100 so far.
You want to take another shot at that little buddy? The morning after pill… Should it be banned, should the penalty for using it be comparable with the penalty for murder?
@Ciaran O Shea: Brilliant.
@EvieXVI: Life is life so taking away life or willfully ending life is not a legal entitlement in any or all sections of Irish society. The humane pro-life people are being cut to pieces and suckered into a referendum that does not represent the real impact nor structure for it isn’t about humane medical issues as that doctor would have it but the change in the rule of law. Where there can only be a victim vs perpetrator within Irish law when taking away life , society now wants to insert woman/fetus as an entitlement. This is a act of national self deception.
I see these cowards throw everything at the developing life in the womb but never, ever in terms of ‘taking away that life’ or ‘ending that life’ and with good reason. It is far too close to the legal area of taking away life in all areas of society so they dehumanize what is in the womb so they can ‘remove it’.
@Gerald Kelleher: I struggle with reading your posts I find it difficult to make sense of them.
@Brian Madden: Legally the referendum question is – Life vs taking away life.
Is that simple enough for you ?
@Tweed Cap: It is not possible to dehumanize the developing human being in the womb so all you are doing is dehumanizing yourselves which is why I have all these airheads calling me all sorts of things. Brave men fight and have fought for freedom and not entitlements but not being a man you can’t tell the difference.
The legal core of the referendum is an attempt to smash the inviolate principle of victim vs perpetrator which applies to all members of society in protecting life from being taken away. The referendum is not about no choice/choice but the use of the law for entitlements.
@Brian Madden: Me too… it’s probably drink!
@Gerald Kelleher: I know, you’re right – this amendment has no place in our constitution. That’s why we need to repeal it!
@Gerald Kelleher:
Good man Gerald. Sweep them hard questions under the carpet and motor on regardless. That murder drum won’t beat itself I suppose.
@Gerald Kelleher: you left out your repetitive references to extermination, mass extermination, and extermination policies.
@Tweed Cap: Your not getting it and I doubt any of you ever would. The referendum is not a medical issue but a legal issue strictly covering the entitlement to take away life which is rightly met with severe punishment in all areas of society. It is not dancing around the fact that it is life in the womb so unless you want to commit intellectual suicide and deny it is life then taking away that developing human life joins all other areas in society where the role of the law is to protect life and the medical community is designed to save life.
Men fight for freedom, less than men fight for entitlements that no society should need nor want.
@Gerald Kelleher: a dog’s life, a cows life, a pigs life? If you want to be explicitly accurate about the word life, at least be precise. You mean human life or moreso you mean a potential human life?
@Gerald Kelleher: thank you for simplifying it Gerald. Let’s trust Irish women and repeal the 8th.
@EvieXVI: The referendum in its present pro-life vs pro-choice structure is fraudulent, it is an attempt to change the role of the law from protecting life to being a vehicle for entitlements for one section of society in taking away life that it the encompassing wider society is met with severe punishments.
@Gerald Kelleher: like capital punishment ?? You’re not getting anywhere with this argument ..
@Bilbo Baggins: “You mean human life or moreso you mean a potential human life?”
That ‘potential life’ works against you otherwise what else is a pregnancy only the development of a new life within the womb. The pro-life people, decent as they are, tie themselves in knots with people who can’t dehumanize the developing life in the womb enough in order to take away that life but only manage to dehumanize themselves. It happened in Germany in the 1930′s with all the misplaced enthusiasm for extermination policy only this time it is called ‘healthcare.
It is not about taking away that life with a knife, poison or something else, it is whether Irish society is prepared to undermine the inviolate principle of victim vs perpetrator when life is been taken away and allow woman vs fetus to become an entitlement thereby changing legal impartiality.
It is not insanity but it is anarchy of the highest order.
@Gerald Kelleher: What are you on about? It doesn’t make any sense? What are you, the womb police?
@Siobhán Ni Mhurchú: It isn’t an argument, the real impact of the referendum is not whether women get or do not get a choice but whether our entire society departs from legal impartiality on issues of taking away life. The law can’t be humane but it must remain impartial so providing ‘special treatment’ to one section of society where life is willfully ended is anarchy with dehumanizing language only secondary to supporting an assault on law and order.
People have sometimes difficulties articulating why they feel uncomfortable with the referendum but at least they do know it is not a woman’s issue but one connecting every life on this island including life in the womb.
@Gerald Kelleher: okay, you managed to get in Germany and the 1930s again. You now need to go into all the extermination stuff and then come back to the definition of a foetus, get stuck in again in to the dehumanization language and go back to Von Humboldt, who died back in 1859.
I’m starting to recognise the circular and recursive nature, ever decreasing circles, of your thought patterns.
I suspect that Von Humboldt, Copernicus and Galileo are not to the forefront of focus a woman in a crisis pregnancy needing a solution, a real life situation for the woman, a practical and real solution.
@I wish I was my dog: You are looking in the wrong direction my dear but you are not alone. Nobody here has a legal entitlement to take away life in society for any reason and it is a human life developing in the womb. The law cannot exempt itself from the principles of victim vs perpetrator when life is taken away in general society (with all the strict punishments to prevent victimhood) and create a woman vs fetus legal entitlement as that undermines the entire relationship between the law and protecting all life in society.
Societies can and do fool themselves occasionally and it is our turn. The trojan horse for unjust legal entitlements are medical issues which can be dealt with separately for as it stands the change of the role in the law to society has created strange and disruptive dynamics in countries where it was introduced and especially the ‘victim’ culture wrapped up in entitlements.
@Gerald Kelleher: Well said ,
The secularists want the role of the law from being a protecting principle of life on this island to being a guiding principle and that is one f)cked up design.
No point in criticizing the pro-choice people as left to their own devices it would be a straightforward ‘ their body/ their business’ but the politicians have to piggyback that flimsy entitlement on medical difficulties in pregnancies. A nation that cheats itself cheats nobody but unfortunately those who vote no are not voting to deny women choice but to prevent legal impartiality on matters of taking away life.
Have to shake my head sometimes at giddy comments as though taking away life was not at stake.
@Brian Madden: ” Let’s trust Irish women and repeal the 8th.”
You hop into your car and for an unfortunate event where you are not to blame, you take away the life of a pedestrian and that is the humane medical element of this.
You hop into a car and drive into a pedestrian with willful intent and that is the legal core of the referendum. It is an entitlement issue and not a medical issue so while the pro-life people run around trying to appear humane, the real impact is in the change of the law to willful intent where the victim vs perpetrator principle is undermined.
@Gerald Kelleher: Being a human life doesn’t entitle anyone of us on here to use someone else’s organs against their will. Why should it be any different for the embryo? Can you answer that ?
@Francis Mc Carthy: “Being a human life doesn’t entitle anyone of us on here to use someone else’s organs against their will.”
This is the host/parasite thing but the central point of the referendum is taking away life with willful intent.
I could do no better than the analogy of a blameless car accident where a pedestrian is killed as opposed to driving into a pedestrian with willful intent. The referendum is an attempt to bring legal entitlements for willful intent by using genuine medical difficulties with pregnancies as a trojan horse.
I am sure Irish people are more considerate than the pro-life vs pro-choice structure which is actually fraudulent by mixing humane medical concerns with legal entitlements. It means we have deceived ourselves already in trying to treat a legal issue as a medical one.
@Gerald Kelleher: you never answered the EXACT question that I asked of you :-)
We already gave Irish women the ‘right’ to remove that non viable “life” from her body.Did you not know about this ?
@Francis Mc Carthy: I don’t have to answer the question as it is a straightforward legal point regarding willful intent as it applies to all citizens in society. It is not a clause in the constitution that is being changed or not changed, it is a referendum regarding the role of the law where willful intent to take away life is involved. The principle of protecting all life in Irish society through the law cannot be compromised by giving entitlements to one section of society which is met with severe measures in all other citizens. The referendum is less about choice/no choice than legal entitlements covering all society.
@Gerald Kelleher: How many lives have been taken away due to policies of the Church?
@Gerald Kelleher: Gerald you’re a brainwashed misogynist. You’ve no right telling a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. You should shut up and sit down.
@Gerald Kelleher: You’re a raving misogynist here day in/day out ranting away about this. Why don’t you go help people already born if you want to help babies? Go adopt a child. Not interested? Then you can shut the hell up and stop trying to control womens’ behaviour, you weirdo.
@Gerald Kelleher: so if I drink drive and crash into you, and your kidneys fail as a result of ‘Crush syndrome’, should I be forced to donate my kidney to you if I’m a match? Should we bring in legislation whereby people can be forced to have their bodies used against their will if we want to punish them or feel they’re at fault? Should we force immediate relatives to donate bone marrow to immediate family members who need BM transplants, since the BM of immediate relatives is preferable?
@QtrzRZ6r: Keep it simple. An unintended accident where a pedestrian is killed does not come within the same legal language as going out and driving into a pedestrian and taking away their life through willful intent.
The referendum tries to lump the two together by piggybacking willful intent with humane medical process and that is not just fraudulent, it already is an act of national self deception. If the referendum was a straightforward ‘their body/their business’ it would represent a challenge to legal impartiality in matters which receive severe punishment for everyone in society where willful intent is involved in taking life away but medical concerns are acting as a trojan horse for the anarchy of taking away life in the womb.
It isn’t the pro-choice people creating the problem, it is the pro-life people who were suckered into a referendum that really is a legal entitlement issue and not a humane medical issue. The pro-life people want to plead on the basis of the developing child when they should have been looking at legal entitlements which permit no exemptions to taking away life.
@Gerald Kelleher: my womb, my decision.
@Brian Madden: Trust women to do what ?
@Michael Daly: Its a meaningless slogan and a distraction from the core legal issue thrown up when something as drastic as undermining the victim vs perpetrator when taking away life in all Irish society. It may be the final justification of an entitlement agenda that has been going on for quite some time so the referendum in its surface narrative highlights a national act of self deception and sleepwalking to a societal dynamic where the law becomes a guiding principle rather than a protective one.
These practical therapeutic dilemmas are a consequence of applying dogmatic ideological simplicities to very complex situations.
The dilemma for a GP is that if she or he has clear evidence that a patient has taken an abortfacient and thereby procured an abortion in Ireland that is a very serious and major criminal offence under Irish law, imposing a legal obligation on thecGP to inform An Garda Siochana.
For this reason, there has to be an oblique approach with neither GP nor patient open,u acknowledging that there has been an abortion. The blind eye or “Irish solution”, the pretend that it has not happened approach is applied.
@Michael Lang: that’s not true. GPs don’t have to report anything. People go all the time over illegal issues like if they’ve been beaten or taken drugs.
@Smelly Chemist: yes your correct it’s called patient confidentiality.
@Smelly Chemist: the 2013 legislation applies no exemption for patient confidentiality.
@Michael Lang: The pills are untraceable so no such ‘clear evidence’ would ever be found.
“There were no deaths” – if you don’t count the 1500 unborn children that is..
@Brian Barry:we don’t.we never will.if the woman died,we would only count her life.
try to keep up
@Francis Mc Carthy: your so full of Shite Francis, no to racism on your FB page but no equal rights for human beings.
@The Hoodedman: don’t start getting too emotional on me..but can you put up proof that I don’t want “equal rights for human beings” ?
Would love to see it
@Brian Barry: We don’t count miscarriages in our death stats do we? Why would we count intentional miscarriages?
This ‘Pro-Life’ rubbish is all a load of nonsense. Lies and misogyny. They’d rather a woman like Miss D died rather than have an abortion. The women who are pro-life are the worst of the lot. No help to women in need, no ability to empathise with a situation other than their own, just judge, judge, judge. This is a leftover bastion of Catholic brainwashing. Katie Ascough, Niamh Uí Bhriain, Caroline Simons. Every one of them is a Catholic benefactor with a religious agenda, each against same sex marriage, each one trying to control other women cos of their own beliefs. Happy to force people to do what they think is right. #repeal
What this does show is that the pills appear to be safe to take at home and the main argument for the 12 week clause is debunked. It is no wonder that pro-choice activists in the UK are campaigning for the law to be changed to allow the pills to be taken at home.
@Patrick Jackman: so you are against abortions but now you think these pills are OK to use in Ireland?
If you were against abortions then you should be seeking for any woman who imports or uses these pills to be charged.
@Patrick Jackman: eh? We always knew that the abortion pills were extremely safe.What we want is for them to be taken under medical supervision.In other words,we want Irish women to be able to secure a safe,legal abortion in their own country..
@Barry Somers: Or for any woman who miscarries to immediately be under criminal investigation.
@Barry Somers: What I am saying is that the main argument advanced for the 12 week clause by the All Party Committee was the ‘danger’ of taking them at home. Given that no such ‘danger’ has been demonstrated this argument is debunked. The other argument about it being impossible to legislate for rape cases is also debunked by the fact that nearly 50 countries have legislated for these exceptional cases.
Thus there must have been another reason why the committee recommended the 12 week clause, so why weren’t they up front about it? Then we could have a rational debate about that reason.
@Francis Mc Carthy: If they are safe then they don’t need to be taken under medical supervision. You are demonstrating the up front honesty that the committee couldn’t and I have respect for you for that honesty.
@Patrick Jackman: safe but seriously and criminally illegal and cannot be decriminalized unless or until the 8thAmendment is repealed.
@Michael Lang: Indeed, but lets have that debate based on facts not scaremongering.
@Patrick Jackman: just because they’re safe for a lot of women to take without supervision doesn’t mean they’re safe for all women to take without supervision.
for whatever reason, i tend to almost always suffer more extreme side effects from almost all medication i take – prescribed or otc. hallucinations, suicide attempts, extreme fatigue, disorientation, abnormal levels of confusion… i’ve suffered all of these from common medications – some i’ve had to stop taking all together, despite being the most effective for a complaint. i sure as hell wouldn’t want to take any abortion pills without medical supervision.
i’m pro-choice, but i personally can’t stand the irresponsibility of importing these tablets to take without the knowledge or care of a medical professional.
The Irish Medical Council Guidelines (2016) states that doctors have a duty to care for and support women after they have had an abortion. It also insists on patient confidentiality.
If you do the right thing.you won’t need any pills protect the 8th save a life Save humanity. We all have the right to experience life’s journey.
have your say