Women Feel Empowered by Online Abortions

Available for over a year

Abortion laws in Ireland and Northern Ireland are among the world’s most restrictive, for some women the only option is costly travel to English clinics. But an increasing number are opting to buy abortion pills online, an experience they find positive and empowering, according to researcher Dr Abigail Aiken. The genomes, or genetic maps, of masses of people have now been sequenced. Researchers hope that this information will reveal individuals’ susceptibility to certain diseases or how they respond to specific drugs. But the majority of those people are Caucasian. Now researchers in East London are trying to fill that gap by collecting genetic information from thousands of people with Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage. More than 65 million people are currently displaced from their home countries. Experts like Médecins Sans Frontières’ Dr Monica Rull are concerned that the health of migrants is suffering because of a lack of global leadership. She says that it is surprising that there is better healthcare available to migrants who arrive in Lebanon than to those who end up in richer countries like the UK. (Photo caption: The abortion drug Mifepristone © Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)