March for Choice 2016

Not long to go to this year March for Choice, taking place on Saturday September 24th. This one day represents months of planning by all the volunteers which make up the Abortion Rights Campaign.

We will assemble at 1:30 pm at The Garden of Remembrance, on Parnell Square, close to the Rotunda hospital where medical professionals are restricted in the care they can give their patients by the 8th Amendment.

We will be joined by groups and individuals who have travelled from all over the country to support those who are forced travel for abortion each year, as well as Students, Unions, Doctors, Midwives and other civil society organisations.

At 2pm the March will start, proceeding down O’Connell St passing the GPO where many fought and died for the dream of an Ireland in which people could choose their own destiny. That dream will not be fulfilled until we have self determination and choice, with access to free, safe and legal abortion for all in Ireland.

We will turn left at the quays marching towards The Custom House. This is where many of the confiscated packets of abortion pills, ordered by women unable to travel, end up. Here we will be joined by Parents for Choice. Please join us here if you wish to take part in the march but are unable to walk the full route.

We will then cross the Liffey moving towards the back entrance of Trinity College Dublin. The Trinity Students Union was one of those taken to the High Court in 1991 for giving out abortion information. This Students Union along with the many more with a Pro Choice mandate will be marching with us.

We will then proceed onto Pearse St, passing by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) head office. Since its founding, when contraception was still illegal, the IFPA has worked hard to get information to people and to provide services. As we pass by the Dart station we will think of the 1,000s of people who have had to travel each year. We march to end these journeys.

We will then approach Merrion Square and our National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street, which must send women away from its care each week due to our inhumane laws & the 8th Amendment.

Finally we will end of our March outside the Dáil Éireann, to hear from speakers, who will remind us that while the March maybe over for another year, the fight will go on until we Repeal the 8th Amendment and legislate for Free Safe and Legal abortion in Ireland.

Come Join us on the 24th of September as we Rise and Repeal the 8th!