All Ireland Rally for Life in Dublin draws 10,000 participants

Over 10,000 people converged in Dublin this past Saturday for the All Ireland Rally for Life. Participants were particularly marching to “hold the government to account for the spiraling abortion rate” as well as to call the government to uphold the mandatory three-day waiting period for women who want abortion.

Abortion was legalized in the nation in 2018, and recent reports show that the country’s number of abortions reached an all-time high in 2022, with one baby aborted for every seven born. Though abortion supporters initially promised to limit abortion to 12 weeks, a recent three-year review recommended scrapping penalties for committing abortions after 12 weeks as well as removing the three-day period.

“We now know that the abortion numbers jumped 22% last year,” Rally for Life spokeswoman Megan Ní Scealláin said. “There were 8,156 abortions in 2022 – up from an estimated 6,700 the previous year. This rise is both steep and deeply disturbing – and it’s also heartbreaking.”

“We’re seeing calls for the 3-day wait before abortion to be scrapped – even though about 4,000 women between 2019-2022 did not return for an abortion after the 3 day period of reflection,” she added. “Why would anyone want to increase the number of abortions? Why not give women time to think – and help women to have their babies instead?”

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Bishop Kevin Doran, chair of the Bishops’ Council for Life in Ireland, strongly condemned abortion in a mass held before the rally.

“The recent review on the operation of the Termination of Pregnancy Act is a good example of how the truth is often the first victim of abortion,” he said. “In the first place, this was not a review of the Act in itself, but only a review of how it operates.  In other words, 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 also called attention to the importance of the three-day waiting period.

“The purpose of the three days between the certification by the doctor and the actual abortion, was to provide a window of opportunity for a woman to consider the decision she is about to make and to explore whether she might have other options,” he explained.

“According to HSE figures, large numbers of women (27 percent) do not return after the three days, indicating that over a quarter of women change their minds for one reason or another.  The three-day waiting period works, not only to save babies but to save women from a decision that they may regret for the rest of their lives.”