Women take abortion pills in Northern Ireland protest

LONDON — Abortion rights campaigners swallowed what they said were abortion pills outside a Belfast court on Thursday, as pressure grows to ease Northern Ireland’s strict ban on terminating pregnancies.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which abortion is illegal in all but exceptional cases. Last week, the neighbouring Republic of Ireland voted to remove a constitutional ban on abortions, putting pressure on the north to follow suit.

Campaigners used a small robot to distribute pills outside Belfast’s Laganside courts complex, before three women flanked by others dressed in “Handmaid’s Tale” outfits swallowed the tablets. Police officers seized the pills and robot, and attempted to lead one woman away. They eventually left without detaining her.

Protest organizers didn’t say whether the women were pregnant, noting it would be illegal for them to take the pills if they were. They said the robot was being operated from the Netherlands to avoid breaching the law.

Eleanor Crossey Malone, one of those who swallowed a pill, said she acted “in defiance of the extremely outdated, medieval, anti-choice laws that exist in Northern Ireland.”

“We are bringing it into the spotlight in order to demand that politicians take action on this immediately,” she said.

The British government says the matter is for Northern Ireland’s administration to decide, which is currently suspended amid a dispute between the main Catholic and Protestant parties.