In Northern Ireland, pro-choice activists deployed robots on the streets of Belfast Thursday to distribute abortion medication, in defiance of a near-total ban on abortions. Police seized the two robots and the pills they were distributing, and said they were investigating whether to press criminal charges. The protest came just days after voters in the Republic of Ireland voted resoundingly to repeal a constitutional ban on most abortions. The move left Northern Ireland as one of the last parts of Europe—and the only part of the United Kingdom—where abortions are effectively outlawed. This is pro-choice campaigner Eleanor Malone.

Eleanor Crossey Malone: “We have a number of volunteers, activists who have volunteered to take safe but illegal abortion pills publicly, in defiance of the law. And we are doing this to say that we’re not willing to be the bastion of backwardness in the developed world. We have a situation where, after the victory of the 'yes' vote in the repeal referendum, Northern Ireland will be one of only two jurisdictions in Europe to effectively criminalize women for having abortions. And we’re just not willing to accept that.”