An estimated crowd of 8,000 pro-life demonstrators braved bitterly cold weather to hold a candlelight vigil outside the Irish parliament on Dec. 4, calling on the government not to introduce abortion legislation. Speakers from a coalition of pro-life organizations asked Prime Minister Enda Kenny to keep a pledge made before the 2011 general election not to introduce such legislation. The protest came a week after Kenny promised “swift action” on study group recommendations that the government introduce legislation to provide for abortion in limited circumstances. In practice, abortion is illegal in Ireland; but a 1992 Supreme Court judgment—known as the X case—found that there is a constitutional right to abortion where there is a substantial risk to the life of the mother, including the risk of suicide, up to birth. The issue has been much debated in Ireland following the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year old dentist, on Oct. 28, after she was denied an abortion in an Irish hospital while suffering a miscarriage.
Irish Abortion Fight
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
The day before he died, Pope Francis made one final circuit through St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile. “That’s my last image of him alive,” Gerry O’Connell remembered. “He drove among the people.”
Universities need to change. But Trump is attacking the wrong problems.
Editor in chief Sam Sawyer, S.J., reflects on praying with Pope Francis’ body in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Just about two weeks before he died, Francis announced that Archbishop-elect McKnight will be the next archbishop of Kansas City, Mo., and that Bishop Lewandowski will become the next bishop of Providence, R.I.