The head of the Abortion Rights Campaign at the March for Choice - which attracted less than half the numbers of the Rally for Life.
"We won't accept and we can't support any less than that."
The organiser of the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) in Ireland said at the weekend that they are campaigning for full access to abortion. The debate in Ireland is often framed around a need for some relaxation of the law to allow for abortion in limited cases, but Linda Kavanagh, speaking at the March for Choice, made it clear that they are campaigning for abortion on demand.
"We want full abortion access," she said. "Nobody that is marching here today.... are not looking for a little bit of abortion, we want full abortion access."
She said that the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly (which called for abortion on demand up to 12 weeks) were the "minimum" they were looking for, and "we won't accept and we can't support any less than that."
The comments were made at the March for Choice, which took place in Dublin on Saturday. Organisers are claiming that 30-40,000 people attended. This figure has not been officially confirmed, but if it is correct, it is dwarfed by the 70-80,000 who took part in the Rally for Life in July. It is also far less than the 100,000 lives it is estimated have been saved from abortion by the Eighth Amendment.
Silencing rape survivors
The news comes as the tactics of people campaigning to repeal the amendment are getting increasingly violent. Two Dublin hotels cancelled an event where women who had given birth after rape or were conceived in rape were to share their experiences after their staff received death threats. In the end, the gathering was held outside the hotel. This video from the Life Institute explains what happened, and features Jennifer who was pregnant after rape, Rebecca whose mother conceived her in rape, Shauna who was pregnant after rape, and Louise, post-abortive after rape.
RTE featured a short interview with Jennifer in its coverage of the March.
News in brief: