By NICK PERRY
"Morning-after" pills are being offered free on the Internet, and an abortion pill may soon be available.
A site offering no-questions-asked birth control solutions is giving away Norlevo "morning-after" pills to anyone wanting to take part in what it claims is a "worldwide scientific trial."
The group hopes soon to sell the abortion pill RU-486, which is illegal in this country. It is sold in France and Britain and can replace surgical abortions if taken within eight weeks of conception.
New Zealanders have already been accessing the site to buy the female condom Femidom, which is not available here.
But New Zealand Medical Association chairwoman Dr Pippa MacKay condemned the offer of contraceptive or morning-after pills without prescriptions, and said any sales of RU-486 would be "hazardous in the extreme."
A Sydney-based group, which claims it wants to help to curb the world's population explosion, is behind the site.
Christians for Negative Population Growth confirmed that New Zealanders had been buying Femidom and would doubtless be interested in taking advantage of the Norlevo pill offer. Norlevo is not available here.
The group has already come under fire in Australia this year for supplying a Queensland teenager with mail-order birth control pills.
Last night Kos Sclavos, president of the Australian Pharmacy Guild's Queensland branch, said it had tried to shut the Internet site but the group had managed to evade the guild by regularly switching servers.
The Internet site offers to become customers' "regular supplier of newer contraceptives at lower prices" and urges people to "save on doctors, save on dispensing fees."
Group spokesman David Hughes said its aim was to supply places such as East Timor with contraceptives to help to reduce world population, which was increasing by 10,000 every hour.
But it needed to make money from richer countries to achieve its aims. It sourced its contraceptives from suppliers around the world, and its business was doubling every month.
"We are not handing stuff out willy-nilly. Most people who navigate the Web are pretty smart and well educated anyway, and we offer information and education about what we are selling."
Dr MacKay said the existence of the Internet site was alarming. People wanting contraceptive pills needed to see a doctor for advice, tests and follow-ups.
People could not be sure what they were getting if they ordered pills over the Internet, she said, and morning-after pills, which had to be taken within 72 hours of sex, would arrive too late to be effective anyway.
But Mr Hughes said morningafter pills should be ordered in advance and kept in handbags or wallets for emergencies.
The Ministry of Health said it had not received any applications to sell RU-486. The drug would need to be approved by the ministry before it could be legally sold.
Women's Health Action executive director Sandra Coney said women's organisations around the world opposed the drug because it posed greater risks than surgical abortion.
Website gives away the Pill
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