These Women Used A Drone To Fly Abortion Medicine To People In Need

Sometimes bad laws can’t stand in the way of good technology. A group of pro-choice women recently used a drone helicopter to fly abortion pills to areas of the country that have restrictive laws on a woman’s right to choose.

“We are here to say we are going to defy the law in helping women obtain these pills and we are going to work to make the law unworkable and stand in solidarity with all women who want to have an abortion and have the right to do so in Northern Ireland,” activist Courtney Robinson told The Guardian.

Police monitored the delivery of drone, which dropped off Mifepristone and Misoprostol, two drugs that have been recommended for more than a decade by the World Health Organization up to nine weeks into an unwanted pregnancy. The police did not interfere with the delivery, as the drugs had been legally prescribed by a doctor.

Abortions are nearly universally illegal in Northern Ireland, forcing women who want to obtain the procedure to travel outside the country at great personal expense. Women who receive an abortion in Northern Ireland can receive up to a lifetime in jail for a practice that is fully legal in most other European nations.

“As long as politicians in Stormont and the Dáil [the Irish parliament] continue to ignore human rights we will continue our campaign,” Robinson told The Guardian.