DUBLIN, Ireland (CNA) — Thousands of people attended a large pro-life rally in Dublin to oppose attempts to force abortion on Ireland by changing its laws.
Organizers said the July 2 “All Ireland Rally for Life” was “hugely successful” and serves as a warning to the political party Fine Gael that the Labour Party’s plans to legalize abortion in Ireland are “unacceptable to the majority of Irish people.”
Speakers called on Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny to keep his promise that his party would be opposed to the legalization of abortion, according to rally co-sponsor Youth Defence.
The European Court of Human Rights in December ruled that Ireland’s abortion ban breached the rights of a woman who had to leave the country in order to procure an abortion. Fine Gael has set up an expert group to examine the judgment.
The “rush” by Ireland’s Labour Party to call for abortion legislation after the ruling hurt their performance in the 2011 elections, Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute told the crowd.
She said that pro-lifers will not accept a review committee that is “stacked against the unborn child” or ignores “the evidence that clearly shows that abortion is never medically necessary.”
Carolyn Johnston of Youth Defence said Irish pro-lifers demand that the government “listen to the pro-life majority who say ‘Yes to life’ and ‘No to abortion.’”
“Enda Kenny needs to tell the European Court not to interfere in the right of the sovereign people to decide Ireland’s pro-life laws,” Johnston said.
Bernadette Smyth, the director of rally co-host Precious Life, said that Ireland’s protection of life was a light to the world and that pro-life people had united to ensure that politicians opposed the legalization of abortion.
Dana Rosemary Scallon, the singer and former member of Parliment, also addressed the crowd.
“Our Constitution belongs to the people. It does not belong to the Dáil — the majority of people in this country do not want legalized abortion in Ireland,” she said, according to the Irish Times.
“Europe has no right to force abortion on the people of this country.”
Participants in the rally, including Bishop Séamus Hegarty of Derry, began their march from the Garden of Remembrance and ended at the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament. They carried signs saying “Keep Ireland Abortion Free” and “Protect Life.” Some signs of babies were captioned “Abortion? We can live without it.”
Official police figures said about 8,000 people attended the rally, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children reports. Several hundred counterdemonstrators who support abortion protested the event.
Edward Pentin: Images of Rome's 2013 March for Life
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God bless Ireland!!! I love reading things like this - sometimes it’s nice just to find some GOOD NEWS to read and talk about! Thank you NCRegister :-)
The European Court of Human Rights obviosly does not care about Human Responsibilties and therefore should be denounced on these grounds.
Ireland is quite post-Catholic on a lot of issues (contraception and gay marriage, for instance), but the opposition of the majority of the population to the legalisation of abortion has never changed. There are a lot of things wrong with contemporary Ireland, but I’m so proud that we’ve stood firm on this issue.
Give me a break! Where were these smug, self rightous crowds when the good Madeline nuns were humiliating and abusing young Catholic women? Where were they when the scores of priests were abusing children and adolescents and covering it up, so the Institution would not be the source of “scandal”? Where were they when members of the Irish hierarchy were pontificating on the virtues and higher sanctity of celibate bliss while having coitus with their mistresses and using monies from the offering plate to support them. Let them march. They are nothing but reeds blowing in the wind and have no moral credibility. The Church is too covered in the stench, the muck and mire of hypocracy and self righteousness to be a moral leader.
Yaakov… you ask:
“Where were these smug, self rightous crowds when the good Madeline nuns were humiliating and abusing young Catholic women?
Probably not born yet…from the looks of that photo (and most pro-life rallies in the US).
Young people are pro-life.
Yaakov, are you suggesting that, because the pro life leaders in Ireland did not effectively intervene to expose clergy abuse scandals in the past, they must now sit on their hands and allow the unmitigated slaughter of unborn babies, that, since the police did not intervene, they must now ignore all other crimes taking place? What puerile nonsense! Wise up man. You must know better than that.
Although pro-life, I agree with Yaakov and pull Harryo up on this pretence that the child abuse is somehow ‘historic’. Cloyne is about as recent as you will get.
The double standards need to stop - either you are pro-human rights; and pro-life is accepting that one human cannot destroy the rights of another human; or you are pro-institution (EU Parliament, Catholic Hierarchy etc).
You cannot be pro-life and defend paedophiles or their protectors.
Mike and Yaakov. The story has nothing to do with anybody defending pedophiles. Unless you actually know all the people involved in this march, which I think is probably impossible, that claim is simply slanderous and is an unnecessary distraction from the issue at hand.
Mike, perhaps I should not have used the phrase ‘in the past’, as it might suggest the distant past since the Cloyne events are quite recent, although I pray all such horrible events are in the - at least very recent - past, and will never reoccur. But it’s a moot point. No matter how recent the events they do not mean the bishops can evade their responsibility to protect innocent life. Negligence, even criminal negligence (as it may yet turn out to be)in one area does not warrant or even justify negligence in another area like the protection of unborn life. Otherwise, not only the Church, but the government would have to shut down. To close one’s eyes to the evil of elective abortion is the moral equivalent of what the bishops did with regard to clerical sex abuse.
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