The masses are marching in Ireland against the media, political elites and the powerful international abortion industry.
That’s how speakers at this week’s Rally for Life in Dublin portrayed their struggle to save the 8th amendment, which grants equal right to life to the unborn and pregnant women in the Republic of Ireland. It has been law since 1983.
More than 100,000 people took to the streets calling for a rejection of the government’s plan to legalize abortion when a referendum is held in May.
Niamh Uí Bhriain of Save the 8th said the crowds that thronged Dublin city centre showed that the government’s abortion proposal had woken a sleeping giant.
“These huge numbers are a rising of the people against the media and political elites and against the powerful international abortion industry who have poured millions into a campaign attacking our pro-life laws. Ireland is at a defining point in our history, and we are challenging the people to reject the abortion industry and to demand a better answer for mothers and babies,” she said. “Abortion has no place in a compassionate and progressive society.”
Campaigners focused on the rights of people with disabilities, telling the throng that 90 percent of pregnancies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome in Great Britain end in abortion. One of the speakers was Charlie Fien, a Down syndrome activist who gave an impassioned plea to the United Nations in March 2017 where she spoke out against the targeted killing of children diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth.
“I am not suffering,” Ms. Fien told the U.N. body in Geneva. “I am not ill. None of my friends who have Down’s syndrome are suffering either. We live happy lives.”
”Saving the 8th will save the lives of babies with Down’s syndrome. Ireland is one of the only countries in the world where babies with Down’s syndrome are safe inside their mother’s wombs” Ms. Fien said, to rapturous applause.
The Rally also heard from Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, a feminist who was accepted as a sponsoring partner for the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., only to be booted when her pro-life views were discovered.
She urged marchers to demand a better answer than abortion for women. “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women, and is a symptom of women’s oppression. Ireland should lead the way by saving the 8th,” she said.
Niamh Uí Bhriain asked the people of Ireland to “stand in the gap” for mothers and babies by preventing the liberalization of the Ireland’s abortion laws. The vote is in 10 weeks.
“Ten weeks to ensure that the best of Irish people vote ‘No’ to abortion,” she said. “Stand in the gap against the media and the international elites who think they could browbeat and bribe the Irish people into accepting the unacceptable, the killing of our own children, but who are to discover in that assumption that they were totally and utterly wrong. Because we know that in repealing the right to life there is no going back.”
The May referendum will ask voters in Ireland to remove the 8th amendment and allow a proposal for unrestricted access to abortion up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy to be introduced in the Irish Parliament.
