Fifty Kerry women travelled to UK for abortions in 2017

FIFTY women from Kerry travelled to the UK for an abortion last year according to statistics published by the UK Department of Health this week.

The figures comes just weeks after a strong majority in Kerry voted Yes to repeal the Eighth Amendment in the referendum which paves the way for legalising abortion in Ireland. The Kerry Yes vote was 58.3 pre cent according to the final poll.

The UK Department of Health figures show that 4,809 women residing outside of England and Wales had abortions. The largest cohort of non-residents travelled from the Irish Republic – 3,092 (64 per cent).

The number of women from the Republic having abortions in England and Wales has been declining since 2001 and the 2017 figure is a five per cent decline on 2016.

The statistics also provide a county-by-county break-down revealing that 50 Kerry women had an abortion in the UK in 2017. The majority of women travelling across the Irish Sea for an abortion were from Dublin with 1,184 women citing the capital as their address.

Last year 49 women gave their address as Kerry, according to the statistics.

The statistics refer to women who give their address as Kerry but there are no guarantees of the accuracy of addresses provided due to the secrecy associated with abortion. The Kerry figures are considered a low estimate as a total of 229 women from Ireland did not give any address.