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School of Law

Dr Ruth Fletcher interviewed about the criminalisation of abortion pills

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Dr Ruth Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Medical Law at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), was interviewed about the criminalisation of abortion pills on Irish independent radio station Today FM. Dr Fletcher was asked about the consequences of abortion’s criminalisation for women and their doctors, as women increasingly access abortion pills online. She said: “The problem in the Republic of Ireland at the moment is that there is the threat of criminal sanction hanging over that confidential practise, and so often what we have is because of the stigma of the criminal law, we have a situation where doctors are scared to provide full medical treatment. So it mightn’t necessarily be that you have implementation of criminal law against the doctors, but the fact that there’s a risk there of criminal complicity means that you don’t have optimum medical care according to international best practice.” Listen to the full interview (from 1 hour 22 minutes).

 

 

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