‘It’s the start of an attack on women’s rights’: Crowds protest Roe v Wade decision outside US embassy in Dublin

Protests were held outside the US embassy in Dublin on Sunday in response to the US supreme court ruling that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.

Roe Vs Wade, a 50-year-old ruling that legalised the procedure across the country, was struck down by the court on Friday with terminations banned in many states within hours of the decision.

Speaking at a protest on Sunday evening, Labour leader Ivana Bacik said it “felt like deja vu” to be protesting for abortion rights again, four years after the repeal of the Eighth Amendment in Ireland.

“Friday’s decision of the supreme court has really galvanised so many of us and caused such distress and dismay to see women’s rights being reversed and to see such a backwards step being taken in America,” she said.

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Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, said the decision was “an attack on reproductive rights”.

“This isn’t just about women in the US, it’s about women globally. This is the result of the Trump era and it’s the start of an attack on women’s rights, but also on same-sex marriage and the right to access contraception,” she said, referencing a concurring opinion released by US supreme court judge Clarence Thomas in which he said the court “should reconsider” its past rulings setting out rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

Chair of Labour Women Ellen O’Sullivan said protesters were standing in solidarity with “everyone in America who lives in fear of what Friday’s judgment means for them and for people who feel their rights are the next to be eroded”.

“We also think of people across the globe who are suffering to restrictive abortion rights,” she said, adding that many in Ireland still needed to travel to the UK to access abortion despite the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

“This shows progress is not linear. Although rights can be won, they can also be taken away, but we will not stop fighting,” Ms O’Sullivan told the crowd.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Mai Ryan said she was attending the protest to show the US that “people around the world think this is terrible”.

Ms Ryan said she had not attended any demonstration since anti-war protests in the late 1960s, but felt a presence at the US embassy on Sunday “might be of some comfort for women in America”.

“It’s not going to stop abortion, it’s going to put women who need abortion in terrible danger.”

A woman named Roisín, who travelled to England for an abortion in 1965, told The Irish Times that had been “a terrible experience” in her life.

“But I survived, I got on with my life and I’ve campaigned ever since. It took us years and years but never for a minute did I think America would go backwards.”

Earlier on Sunday afternoon, a protest organised by ROSA took place outside the US embassy. Speakers included activist Ailbhe Smyth and former Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger.