British women are seeking abortion pills online due to barriers accessing care, research suggests.
A new study found some women in England, Scotland and Wales are shunning traditional routes such as the NHS in favour of seeking help online.
Experts found that 519 women contacted Women on Web between November last year and March this year.
All were living in Wales, Scotland and England, where abortion is legal.
The anonymised emails of 180 women were analysed, who gave 209 reasons for seeking an abortion via online services.
Among all the reasons, 49 per cent listed barriers to getting an abortion the conventional way, including long waiting times, distance to clinic, work or childcare commitments, lack of eligibility for free NHS services and prior negative experiences of abortion care.
