By Sarah Mac Donald
Up to 3,000 people marched through the centre of Dublin last weekend calling for a reform of Ireland’s abortion laws.
According to the fifth annual report on the Health (Regulation of Termination in Pregnancy) Act 2018, more than 10,000 abortions took place in 2023, the highest number of abortions performed in a year since legalisation.
The majority of abortions took place in early pregnancy. Twenty-one were carried out due to a risk to the life or health of the mother and 129 were due to a fatal foetal anomaly.
In his homily for a Mass ahead of the “Rally for Life”, Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran said the march was “a significant political act which draws attention once again to the evil of abortion”.
“No matter how it is dressed up, abortion is an act of violence against women. It kills unborn babies,” Bishop Doran told the assembled protestors gathered in St Saviours’ Priory, Dominick Street in Dublin. He noted that 38,000 abortions had taken place in Ireland since legalisation.
“These are not just statistics; they are innocent human beings, each with his or her own unique identity,” said Bishop Doran, who is chairman of the Bishops’ Council for Life.
Organiser of the annual Rally for Life, Niamh Ní Bhriain, said those taking part in the rally were calling on the government to set up a task force to deal with the “spiralling abortion rates”.
In his homily, Bishop Doran warned that Irish society was “so focused on making abortion available that we have no formal process for even asking a woman why she feels she needs to make this choice”.
When the law no longer upholds the principle that one person may not freely take the life of another, then the very foundations of civilisation are shaken, he said, appealing for support and encouragement for doctors, nurses and pharmacists to “stand for the truth and to act with integrity”. – The Tablet
