Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and those wise enough to have transcended the binary. Are you angry? To have to assemble here today, are you angry? Cause I’m angry.

To be here, fighting for abortion rights 6 YEARS after 66.4% of us voted to repeal the 8th and start treating pregnant people with dignity. A year and a half after the independent review of the legislation, which was itself delayed by 2 years. People shy away from the term angry feminist but I am angry. I’m livid that we still have to be here after all this time because our politicians insist on dragging their heels on reproductive healthcare. I’m enraged by what little regard they seem to hold for pregnant people in this country.

I’m Lauran Kilmartin, co-convenor of the Abortion Rights Campaign, and we are here today to mark the 13th Annual March for Choice on International Safe Abortion Day. We call for Abortion to be recognised as essential healthcare – on Demand and Without Apology. We’re calling for the politicians, who made us promises to stop treating women like criminals and sending them abroad, to step up to their words.

We stand in solidarity with our siblings in the North calling for free, safe, legal, and local abortion services across the whole island.

We are here today, 6 years on from Repeal, because of the barriers that still remain. Because the government insists on playing pass the parcel with the responsibilities for reproductive healthcare and adequate provision of services. And it’s an election year. A year where your representatives will be calling to your door and asking for your vote. YOU have the power to decide who gets to sit in there next year and make changes.

You do.

So you have to ask them the hard questions. You have to ask them what they’re doing about reproductive services in this country. You have to look at their track record and see whether they care about women, about pregnant people in this country. And you have to vote pro choice.

We stand by the statement that Abortion is Healthcare and should be treated as such. No other healthcare is legislated for in the way abortion is; it is left to medical best practice, with the interests of the patients at heart. No other healthcare has the barrier of criminalisation. Doctors still risk 14 years in prison for breaching the narrow confines of our legislation. Leave these medical decisions to the doctors who know best how to care for their patients.

Abortion should be provided with care and compassion in all circumstances. Decriminalisation is fundamental to recognising abortion as healthcare. We have medical safeguards in place – there is no need for abortion to be seen as a criminal matter unless the goal is to keep stigma and shame attached to abortion care. We are under-resourced for GPs in Ireland. But of the 4.4 thousand we do have, Only 10% provide complete abortion services. TWO of our maternity hospitals STILL don’t provide any services.

Access to abortion is time-dependent. The highly restrictive options in our current legislation and the geographic disparity in provision, negatively impact abortion seekers. We warned about these issues from the beginning – the rural/urban divide and patchy provision disproportionately impacts disabled people, working-class people, migrants, people living in Direct Provision, people who are already parents, and people who have other responsibilities.  Are we really saying that we are ok with abortion access being a lottery of means and geography?

For too long we have caused women and pregnant people to suffer in this country for their care. No more can we stand by while we hear stories of trauma, of wait times, of long travel, of foreign travel, of expenses incurred, of conscientious obstruction, of judgement, stigma and shame.

Abortion needs to be free, safe, legal, local, and accessible to all.

We call on this government to acknowledge the findings of the independent review conducted by Marie O’Shea and to implement the changes recommended Without further Delay. Abolish the cruel and medically unnecessary 3 day wait. Eliminate the narrow window of a 12 week cut off. Decriminalise all forms of abortion and untie doctors hands so they can provide best medical care. Remove the restrictive 28 day limit on fatal foetal anomalies so we don’t heap more pain on top of heartbreak. Ensure the adequate  provision of services for all counties and areas of Ireland. Regulate rogue agencies distributing false information to vulnerable people.

Thanks to the tireless work of Together for Safety and other groups, the long promised safe access zones are to be implemented on the 17th of October. This will be a great help in ensuring that those working in healthcare and those accessing the services are able to do so without harassment and intimidation.

The RTE Investigates documentary into Abortion Services in April brought to the forefront again the disgusting treatment of pregnant people and the terrible lies told by rogue crisis pregnancy clinics. So many of our politicians acted shocked and surprised by this. As if we haven’t been screaming about it for years. In 2017, as Minister for Health, Simon Harris said that his department was “genuinely taking action on [rogue crisis pregnancy clinics and counselling centres],” and he would bring forward regulations after the summer recess. Now admittedly he didn’t specify which summer recess So we’d appreciate it, Simon, if it could be the 2024 summer recess so we don’t have to enter yet another year where people are mistreated and lied to under the false assumption that these people mean to help them.

For anyone who has questions about continuing or ending a pregnancy HSE My Options is the only genuine service.

The whole point of the review that you, Taoiseach, added to the legislation was to check if it was working as it should. And it is NOT working. We do not have the free, safe, legal, and local access to abortion services that pregnant people deserve. So we need these recommendations implemented NOW.

Our fight for reproductive justice is part of the global fight for justice; for Trans rights, housing rights, inclusion, for sex worker rights, rights for parents, the right to have children how and when you choose, the right to choose not to have children, migrant rights and for refugee rights. 

It’s one fight.

And we will not leave people behind.

There are No circumstances in which it is acceptable to force someone to remain pregnant against their will. 

More than a thousand people have been forced to travel to England and Wales alone for terminations since we voted for repeal in 2018. And as long as one person is forced to travel or forced to carry a pregnancy they do not want then there are NOT ENOUGH abortions in Ireland.

I’ll say it again for the people at the back:

ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE!

Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide x3

Abortion is our right! We won’t give up this fight! x3

Thank you all for being here today. Remember to contact your TDs and only vote pro choice! Thank you!