Politicians on the left are attempting to “remove the safeguards” in current abortion legislation, an anti-abortion rally in Dublin on Monday was told.
Hundreds of people attended the March for Life rally, which marched from St Stephen’s Green to outside Leinster House.
Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn told the crowd there were “efforts from the left to remove the safeguards, to expand access” in relation to abortion in the Republic.
Noting that more than 10,000 abortions were carried out in 2024, O’Flynn said people “need to change the course that we’re on”.
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O’Flynn, a TD for Cork North-Central, said: “I am a man and because I am a man I will never fully understand what it is like to face a crisis pregnancy. I will never feel that fear. I will never feel that pressure, the isolation.” The only TD to speak at the event, he asked why “so many” women were choosing to have abortions.
“Why do so many feel that they have no choice? Is it housing? Is it the cost of living? Is it fear, or is it the lack of support?”
He said people attending the rally were sending “a very clear message: this debate is not over and we will not be silenced”.
Ellen Troy, an Aontú councillor on Fingal County Council, encouraged people to elect more anti-abortion TDs.
Troy told the crowd that the number of abortions carried out each year would increase “if we don’t have more pro-life seats in that Dáil behind us”.
Without naming anyone, she said it was “extraordinary how so many politicians who once called themselves pro-life had abandoned those principles”.
Several speakers were critical of a Bill introduced by the Social Democrats last week which aims to remove the mandatory three-day “cooling off” period included in legislation. The current law allows terminations without restriction up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once a three-day waiting period has passed between a first and second consultation.
Introducing the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026 in the Dáil, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns described the three-day waiting period as “patronising and paternalistic” and said it “has no scientific basis”.
Removing the three-day wait was one of the recommendations included in a review of Ireland’s abortion services by barrister Marie O’Shea, who published her report in April 2023.
However, Caroline Simons, a spokeswoman for the Pro-Life Campaign, said the three-day wait period “gives a woman freedom, time to think, time to reflect”. Simons said the fact that abortion pills can be bought online means the number of women having terminations may be higher than official figures, including some who have abortions due to “coercion” from a partner.
Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018, which paved the way for abortion to be legalised in some circumstances. The vote was passed by 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent.
Cairns last week said many women are were still forced to travel abroad to access abortion, particularly in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
“It is now seven years since our abortion law was enacted and three years since an expert review found a range of problems with it,” she said. “Every month that passes without action is a month in which more and more women are failed.”
