Thousands take part in annual Rally for Life in Dublin city centre

Chants of “Roe v Wade is overturned, come on Ireland it’s our turn” were heard in Dublin at the weekend as thousands of people took part in the annual Rally for Life.

The anti-abortion demonstration started at the Garden of Remembrance on Saturday afternoon and moved down O’Connell Street before speeches were heard at Custom House Quay.

Protesters referenced the Roe v Wade decision by the US supreme court, which last year eliminated a federal right for a woman to have an abortion, with others carrying placards stating that “abortion kills our future”.

An independent review of the State’s abortion law has been referred to the Oireachtas health committee. The report, from barrister Marie O’Shea, recommends the removal of a three-day reflection period for women seeking an abortion, the decriminalisation of doctors who fail to adhere to current legislation and potential changes to the granting of abortions in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities.

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Dr Trevor Hayes, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist working in St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, said he would not be “forced, coerced and bullied” by politicians or the media into performing or facilitating abortion.

“Neither will many other doctors, midwives, nurses and other healthcare professionals who know that abortion is not healthcare and want no part in it,” he said, adding that abortion does not “serve women” and was instead a “sign that we have absolutely failed them”.

“The Minister of Health needs to understand this if he believes he can bully pro-life doctors and nurses into performing abortions, he is absolutely wrong,” Dr Hayes added.

Peadar Tóibín, leader of Aontú, told the crowd “we are in the middle of an enormous political battle here in Ireland” and most parties were pushing for “ever more access to abortion”.

“The political establishment in Ireland is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Even the political parties of the centre, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are captured as well,” he said. “They set up the abortion review, but that review was a stitched up recommendation review to deliver what they wanted.”

Independent senator Sharon Keogan said the Government “no longer seemed to care about abortion at all” and had allowed a free vote on a People Before Profit Bill to give effect to many of Ms O’Shea’s recommendations, which passed second stage in the Dáil in recently.

“The Government has no interest in keeping the number of abortions that happen in this country down,” she said.

Ms Keogan added that every Government member was “keeping their heads down on this issue for the sake of their careers”.

Catholic Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran has described the recent review of the operation of the Termination of Pregnancy Act as “a good example of how the truth is often the first victim of abortion”. He said it was “only a review of how [the Act] operates”.

The Government “was not interested in what people thought about abortion. All they wanted was to establish whether the Act was effective in what it set out to do, namely ending the lives of unborn babies,” he said.

The chair of the Bishops’ Council for Life was speaking before the rally at a Mass in St Saviour’s Church, Dominick Street. He noted that “the review consistently refers to abortion as ‘women’s healthcare’ ”. This, he said, was “to justify the use of public health resources and the pressure on healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists to provide abortion.”

“There is no evidence whatsoever that those abortions have anything to do with healthcare,” he added.