Dutch based campaigners are focusing on women’s access to “easy and safe” method to bring an end to pregnancy with the help of drone technology.
These drones are named as the “abortion drone”.
This Saturday, small drones carrying packages of abortion medication pills were flown from Germany to Poland, a country where women are faced with some of the strictest abortion laws in the world.
The packages were met by a group of women who will be responsible for further distribution of these pills over to the individuals looking for abortion.
These abortion drones were sent by a not-for-profit organisation which goes by the name of Women on Waves – an organisation which provides medicinal abortion pills throughout the world. These pills are said to help Polish women in ending their pregnancies without any harm. Typically, this organisation sends the required pills via post once women have placed her order online. But this is the first time they have used an unusual technique to deliver i.e. via drone.
In order to legally enter a Polish town, the drones essentially took advantage of numerous loopholes. Initially, it was departed from Germany as abortion is legal there, and it doesn’t require any permission from the government of either county because the medicines were not said to be used for commercial purposes and the whole package was within an assured weight limit.
According to the press release,
“The Abortion drone will mark the different reality for Polish women to access to safe abortion services compared to other women in Europe”. They further added that, “In almost all European countries abortion is legal, only in Poland, Ireland and Malta abortion is illegal and women’s rights are still violated.”
However, most often issues like these doesn’t capture the media’s attention but Poland is a prominent exclusion in Europe, where legal abortion is easily reachable. Within the Polish region, only Malta and Ireland have most restrictive abortion laws. But later, after facing pressure from the Catholic Church, the procedure got commendably forbidden in Poland by 1993. Since after that, thousands and thousands of Polish women have been enforced to travel to different countries each year to legally bring an end to pregnancies.
Abortions are legally available to women in most of the European countries but there are certain circumstances that must be met in Finland, Portugal, UK, Spain, and Cyprus i.e. when women is faced with a serious threat to her health, in cases of rape, and when the foetus got damaged.
Here’s how it works:
Rebecca Gomperts, the founder and director of organisation Women on Waves, who originated this creative way of expanding access to abortion medication said that she is hoping that this stunt will trigger a broader conversation about the lack of abortion rights and inequality for women in Poland, while at the same time potentially expanding the use of this emerging technology in other countries where these restrictive laws are practical.
Apart from abortion and killing people, drones are being positively used all over the world to as aid tool. Iran uses drones to locate drowning victims in oceans and provide life-preserver floats to them using a drone called Pars Rescue Robot Drone. China used surveillance drones during college examination to prevent students from cheating.
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