Pro-choice campaigners have said Gardaí would be “foolish” to stop them giving out illegal abortion advice.
Activists will deliberately break the law today when they tour the country on board a bus telling women how to access terminations in Ireland and putting them in touch with doctors willing to prescribe abortion pills, in a bid to force a constitutional change.
Under the current legislation, abortion is still illegal in this country, except when doctors decide there is a real and substantial risk to the life of a suicidal mother.
The supply of information is also strictly controlled, with tight restrictions surrounding who can give out abortion advice and what they can say.
In a protest last year, pro-choice group ROSA (For Reproductive Rights against Oppression Sexism and Austerity) and Ruth Coppinger TD (pictured) travelled to Belfast to bring abortion pills back to Dublin.
Those on board the “abortion pill bus”, which sets out from Dublin’s Central Bank at 9.30am this morning, say they are performing a public service. The bus is travelling to Galway and Limerick today and to Cork and back to Dublin tomorrow.
Waving off the abortion pill bus and sayin few words.Well done Rosa. Limerick & Galway #repealthe8th @TCDSU4Choice pic.twitter.com/yd0XAcgach
— Lynn Ruane (@LynnToWin) October 23, 2015
It will provide women with a private consultation room to speak with a WomenOnWeb doctor. The Dutch non-profit organisation WomenOnWeb distributes pills in countries where abortion is illegal.
Rita Harrold from ROSA said: “It would be very foolish for the State or the Gardaí to try to stop us…We’re breaking this law – the 8th amendment – because it’s not fit for purpose. It was brought about before many of the activists coming on the bus were even born.
“It’s just not good enough that women who can’t afford to travel have no right to control their own bodies …Many women can’t afford to travel (from Ireland) to the UK to have a legal abortion.”