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Home Page > News > 25,000 attend pro-life rally in Dublin to protest new abortion laws

25,000 attend pro-life rally in Dublin to protest new abortion laws

Tyrone football boss Mickey Harte presents pro-life argument at Dublin event

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, January 20, 2013, 8:17 AM

Updated Sunday, January 20, 2013, 8:17 AM

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25,000 people attended a pro-life rally in Dublin on Saturday to protest new abortion laws.

Organizers were amazed when 25,000 people attended a pro-life rally in Dublin on Saturday, including the Tyrone football team boss Mickey Harte.

The Vigil For Life event was called to highlight opposition to any change on abortion legislation as the Irish government considers reform.

Irish state broadcaster RTE reports that the organizers said the event was ‘intended as a means to express concern about and opposition to plans to legislate for abortion in certain circumstances.'

Speakers at the Merrion Square rally included the GAA boss Harte whose daughter Michaela was murdered on her honeymoon in Mauritius two years ago.

Harte told the crowd: “Ireland is almost unique in the Western world in looking out for, and fully protecting, two patients during a pregnancy - a mother and her unborn child.

“We are here to oppose the unjust targeting of even one unborn child’s life in circumstances that have nothing to do with genuine life-saving medical interventions."

Pro-Life campaign leader Caroline Simons told the crowd: “Claims by the Government that abortion is needed to treat threatened suicide in pregnancy were completely demolished at last week’s Oireachtas (parliament) hearings on abortion.

“There is no evidence whatever that suggests that abortion reduces the mental health risks of unwanted or mis-timed pregnancy.

“But there is evidence that abortion increases the risk of future mental health problems for a significant number of women.”

The report adds that Bernadette Goulding of the Women Hurt organisation spoke in personal terms about her own experience of abortion.

She told the crowd there has been much talk about the risk of suicide before an abortion, but in her experience, she said, there is a much greater risk of suicide after an abortion.

A smaller group of around 200 pro-choice campaigners staged a counter demonstration nearby.

Earlier over 100 activists gathered in Dublin to plan a campaign aimed a securing abortion rights for Irish women.

The Abortion Rights Campaign told RTE that forthcoming legislation on abortion must allow doctors to perform terminations in situations where risk to the life of the mother is not immediate or inevitable.

It added such circumstances would include cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or when a woman chooses not to continue with a pregnancy.

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eiriamach | Jan 21, 2013, 10:53 AM EST

Ephraim Kibby is exactly right. Stigmatizing and demonizing, as falconflash does, is a primary reason why abortion, even when necessary to save a pregnant woman's life, can become traumatic. The report I cited earlier continues, "'The evidence shows, though, that whether these women have abortions or go on to give birth, their risk of having mental health problems will not increase'.... The NCCMH study also cites other factors that appear to contribute to a woman’s risk of developing anxiety or depression after an abortion. These include being pressured by a partner to have an abortion and having negative attitudes toward abortions in general." US studies have similar results: FactCheck. org investigated Rick Santorum's claim that suicides by "desperate women" have increased since the US Supreme Court struck down anti-abortion laws (1973). "According to the Center for Disease Control, the [suicide] rate was 6.5 per every 100,000 women in 1973, and had fallen to 4.06 by 2001, the most recent year on record." Age-adjusted suicide figures show "a decline of 41 per cent.... Either way, Santorum was way off." Simons is way off too!

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EphraimKibbey | Jan 21, 2013, 12:14 AM EST

It would seem axiomatic that a woman's mental health following an abortion (or for anyone after such a difficult choice) would depend on the quality of the care and support she receives afterwards. If the anti-abortion community believe women in Ireland (or parts of the US) have increased mental health problems following an abortion, perhaps they should look to themselves as the cause. Their constant stigmatization of those faced with making such a choice (and their efforts here to make the choice almost impossible in some states) must be a major cause of any mental health problems women face both before and after exercising their right to determine their own healthcare. The load of guilt that they dump on women in that vulnerable time is truly a form of bullying. We have all seen how those being bullied often resort to suicide to escape the torture. After 63 years, I am still amazed at the number of people who think they have the right to demand that others live their lives according to their dictates and ridicule them if they don't.

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falconflash | Jan 20, 2013, 10:27 PM EST

redhand: the Irish win on both accounts: they are generous to those in need as you desire and they don't kill babies....get your affairs in order before you have to answer to God as to why you were an abortionist.

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eiriamach | Jan 20, 2013, 07:58 PM EST

Caroline Simons lied, but that's standard behavior for the "let women die" fanatics. Susan Perry, 12/13/11, reports, "Women with unwanted pregnancies who have an abortion are no more likely to develop mental health problems such as anxiety and depression than those who give birth, a comprehensive new British study has found. The study, which was conducted by Britain’s National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH), did uncover an association between unwanted pregnancies and a higher incidence of anxiety and depression. But that association had nothing to do with the choices the women made regarding the outcome of their pregnancy. In fact, the study found that the most reliable predictor of whether a woman would have mental health problems after an abortion was the existence of such problems before the abortion." You can download the full report from the website of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (the U.K. government agency that commissioned the study).

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redhand32 | Jan 20, 2013, 05:04 PM EST

Real Pro-Life people must always draw the distinction between a Pro-Life Agenda and the phonies who call themselves "Pro-Life" but are really just anti-abortion. I am talking about the US Republican phonies chiefly whose "pro-lifery" ends at the birth canal as they pursue their maniacal cuts to social safety nets for the after born. Thse latter folks also deserve their lives. Yet, it doesn't happen as the RC Paul Ryans, Todd Akins of the world, --the "pro-lifers" slash funding to Food Assistance programs, mental health funding (even as mentally ill gunmen murder our children), Medicaid to the poor, Medicare and Social Security to the elderly and disabled, aid to Special Needs Children at the State level. You can't be Pro-Life and at the same time destroy children, the poor, elderly, disabled, mentally ill, Autistic kids, in other words like the unborn child, the vulnerable among us. Hypocrites all !

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falconflash | Jan 20, 2013, 01:08 PM EST

Ireland stand proud--- we don't kill babies.

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barneyjo | Jan 20, 2013, 01:06 PM EST

It is right and proper that all should air their views on this emotive subject. It is equally right that the State should legislate for ALL of its citizens, majorities AND minorities if it is to be regarded as a true Republic!!

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AndrewSB49 | Jan 20, 2013, 11:20 AM EST

Lots of members of Religious Orders at this march - those Religious Orders known to the Ryan Report.

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Gearoid4 | Jan 20, 2013, 10:42 AM EST

Caroline Simons, one of the most astute pro-life campaigners hit the nail on the head when she stated."“There is no evidence whatever that suggests that abortion reduces the mental health risks of unwanted or mis-timed pregnancy. “But there is evidence that abortion increases the risk of future mental health problems for a significant number of women.” The pro-life campaign is awakening and the numbers reported at the most recent rally in Dublin should give grounds for hope in terms of influencing the course of the legislation that is being prepared in relation to putative changes in Ireland's pro-life laws.

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WoundedKnee | Jan 20, 2013, 09:47 AM EST

"Organizers were amazed"????? Counihan, are you totally out of touch? All pro-life sources in Ireland told me this was going to be a big mobilization. Everyone knew this. Except you, it seems. If you're going to make a living as a journalist you need to start developing a feeling for stories like this, and leave your prejudices behind.

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eiriamach | Jan 20, 2013, 09:26 AM EST

It's chilling enough that people would protest the government's attempt to find a way to save pregnant women when pregnancy endangers their lives. But it's astonishing that the protestors call themselves "pro-life." In Savita's case, "pro-life" meant "double death," when only one death was inevitable. Is any other proof needed that the Irish Constitution's "equal" valuing of the lives of fetus and pregnant woman is a religion-based sham, a feel-good fantasy unworkable in practice? In practice, even a fetus that doctors know is dying must be kept alive to please "pro-lifers" while a woman dies needlessly. That's pro-death!

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hollabackgurl | Jan 20, 2013, 08:40 AM EST

They bussed them in from every deserted village in the country. Ireland says No to abortion and Yes to emigration. It's once you're born they stop giving a toss about you or your fate. All human life is sacred until it's stamped for export and forgotten about. How about that for Christian family values?

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