Yesterday morning UCD students staged a banner drop from the N11 flyover as momentum builds ahead of Saturdays ‘March For Choice’ organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign.
The Students’ Union and ‘UCD For Choice’ staged the drop this morning to commuters and passers-by as a way of promoting the campaign to have the Eight Amendment repealed, which is quickly becoming the most topical issue of the new term.
In attendance loaning support was Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD for Dublin West. Coppinger has been a vocal advocate for the Pro-Choice campaign. In 2015 she was part of a delegation that gained a national audience after joining the pro-abortion lobby group ‘WomenOnWeb’ that travelled to Cork, Limerick and Galway providing consultation to women on seeking abortions, then providing pills to terminate pregnancies thereafter. A service that is still illegal in Ireland.
Speaking to Deputy Coppinger, she highlighted how “there’s a momentum here particularly of young people who are demanding a say to repeal what is an archaic and dangerous law that ignores the fact of 13 women leaving the country every day to safely access abortion services.”
A representative from the UCD Students’ Union says that this is just the start of a yearlong campaign that the SU will be driving as a central issue that they were mandated to support after a student-body referendum passed in 2013 showed a majority of UCD students are in favour of repealing the amendment.
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Oisín MacCanna | Politics Editor
