A 21-year-old Northern Irish woman has been given a three-month suspended jail sentence for taking abortion pills she had purchased over the internet.
Terminating a pregnancy in Northern Ireland is illegal except in very limited circumstances, unlike in the rest of the UK.
The woman, who cannot be named under a court order, miscarried a male foetus – aged between 10 and 12 weeks – after taking two types of abortion pills she bought online in 2014.
Two of her housemates later found a foetus and blood-stained items in a bag outside their house and told police what she had done.
A post-mortem examination confirmed the foetus belonged to the woman.
The woman, who was 19 at the time, could not raise the funds to travel to England for a legal abortion, so bought mifepristone and misoprostol pills online.
She pleaded guilty to two offences under Northern Ireland’s abortion laws and was handed a three-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.
The sentencing judge told the court in Belfast on Monday the legislation was 150 years old.
