Campaigners for Safe Access Zones outside hospitals and clinics that perform abortions say they feel “very hopeful” after the Minister for Health promised to fastrack legislation through the Oireachtas.
Currently, pro-life activists take part in what they describe as “vigils” outside hospitals where they often try and persuade women to reconsider having an abortion.
Critics describe them as “demonstrations” and women who have had abortions say they found them intimidating and abusive.
Safe Access Zone legislation would ban such events from taking place within 100 metres of abortion clinics and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly told campaigners the legislation will be enacted by the end of the year:
The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly outside National Midwifery Conference, 05-04-2022. Image: Leah Farrell/RollingNews“We have seen the Safe Access Zone legislation on the legislative schedule for spring and autumn for the last three successive years,” Together for Safety campaigner Karen Sugrue told Newstalk.
“So we were getting a little bit down hearted but there are a lot of people today who’ve been working on it very, very hard for the last couple of years who are feeling very uplifted and very hopeful.”
She continued:
“But we’re nowhere near having legislation in place and we’re nowhere near having people being protected from harassment and abuse around health centres and that’s what we want.
“This won’t be finished for us until those protections are in place and until people can access healthcare without the kinds of intimidation and harassment that we’re seeing almost everyday at the moment.”
Roe v Wade
Following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade in the United States, pro-life campaigners in Ireland told Newstalk that the ruling had “enormously energised” them and that, “There’s a new momentum right across the world, not just in America, but in Croatia, in Hungary, in Poland - even in the UK - you’re seeing moves towards new restrictions on abortion.”
A poster being used by the 'Rally for Life' campaign for the march in Dublin city. Picture: SuppliedHowever, Minister Donnelly rejected the suggestion there should be new restrictions on access to abortion and said the ruling would have “zero impact on the provision of healthcare services in Ireland”.
Main image: Demonstrators march for more liberal Irish abortion laws in Dublin in September 2017. Picture by: REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo / Clodagh Kilcoyne
