{"id":468844,"date":"2026-05-05T02:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T02:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/468844\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T02:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T02:17:12","slug":"hundreds-attend-anti-abortion-rally-in-dublin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/468844\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds attend anti-abortion rally in Dublin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politicians on the left are attempting to \u201cremove the safeguards\u201d in current abortion<\/a> legislation, an anti-abortion rally in Dublin<\/a> on Monday was told.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people attended the March for Life rally, which marched from St Stephen\u2019s Green<\/a> to outside Leinster House. <\/p>\n

Independent Ireland<\/a> TD Ken O\u2019Flynn told the crowd there were \u201cefforts from the left to remove the safeguards, to expand access\u201d in relation to abortion in the Republic.<\/p>\n

Noting that more than 10,000 abortions were carried out in 2024, O\u2019Flynn said people \u201cneed to change the course that we\u2019re on\u201d.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn, a TD for Cork North-Central, said: \u201cI am a man and because I am a man I will never fully understand what it is like to face a crisis pregnancy. I will never feel that fear. I will never feel that pressure, the isolation.\u201d The only TD to speak at the event, he asked why \u201cso many\u201d women were choosing to have abortions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do so many feel that they have no choice? Is it housing? Is it the cost of living? Is it fear, or is it the lack of support?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said people attending the rally were sending \u201ca very clear message: this debate is not over and we will not be silenced\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ellen Troy, an Aont\u00fa<\/a> councillor on Fingal County Council, encouraged people to elect more anti-abortion TDs.<\/p>\n

Troy told the crowd that the number of abortions carried out each year would increase \u201cif we don\u2019t have more pro-life seats in that D\u00e1il behind us\u201d. <\/p>\n

Without naming anyone, she said it was \u201cextraordinary how so many politicians who once called themselves pro-life had abandoned those principles\u201d.<\/p>\n

Several speakers were critical of a Bill introduced by the Social Democrats<\/a> last week which aims to remove the mandatory three-day \u201ccooling off\u201d period included in legislation. The current law allows terminations without restriction up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once a three-day waiting period has passed between a first and second consultation.<\/p>\n

Introducing the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026 in the D\u00e1il, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns<\/a> described the three-day waiting period as \u201cpatronising and paternalistic<\/a>\u201d and said it \u201chas no scientific basis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Removing the three-day wait was one of the recommendations included in a review of Ireland\u2019s abortion services by barrister Marie O\u2019Shea, who published her report in April 2023.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Bill introduced to abolish \u2018patronising and paternalistic\u2019 three-day abortion wait periodOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, Caroline Simons, a spokeswoman for the Pro-Life Campaign, said the three-day wait period \u201cgives a woman freedom, time to think, time to reflect\u201d. Simons said the fact that abortion pills can be bought online means the number of women having terminations may be higher than official figures, including some who have abortions due to \u201ccoercion\u201d from a partner. <\/p>\n

Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment<\/a> in 2018, which paved the way for abortion to be legalised in some circumstances. The vote was passed by 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Cairns last week said many women are were still forced to travel abroad to access abortion, particularly in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now seven years since our abortion law was enacted and three years since an expert review found a range of problems with it,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery month that passes without action is a month in which more and more women are failed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Politicians on the left are attempting to \u201cremove the safeguards\u201d in current abortion legislation, an anti-abortion rally in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28810,49,9,10,205737,52,44602,18,13,14,10410,6,47074,19,7062,17,11,12,15,16,5,18578,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-468844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-aontu","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-cork-north-central-constituency","13":"tag-dublin","14":"tag-eighth-amendment","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-featured-news","17":"tag-featurednews","18":"tag-fingal-county-council","19":"tag-headlines","20":"tag-holly-cairns","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-independent-ireland","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-latest-news","25":"tag-latestnews","26":"tag-main-news","27":"tag-mainnews","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-social-democrats","30":"tag-top-stories","31":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116519570293512588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}