THE 10TH ANNUAL ALL-IRELAND RALLY FOR LIFE: “PERSONHOOD BEGINS AT CONCEPTION”
Saturday 2nd July 2016, the day of the long-awaited 10th Annual All-Ireland Rally for Life, was a day to remember as thousands of people from the north and south of Ireland and further afield flocked to Belfast to walk in solidarity with one another and show their united opposition to the current push for legalised abortion on both sides of the border and to demand protection of unborn babies with disabilities.
Music mingled with cheers and pro-life chants as thousands of people waved flags and carried colourful posters, banners and balloons through the streets of Belfast City Centre on their way to Custom House Square where they awaited to hear inspiring speeches from pro-life greats Bernadette Smyth and Niamh Ui Bhriain and special guests.
An impressive 30ft banner displaying the caption “Protect the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and Save the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution” lead the lively and colourful crowd through the streets of Belfast while four 20ft banners reading “Personhood Begins at Conception” flanked the right and left sides of the procession.
Once the people arrived at Custom House Square and assembled in front of the rally stage, MC Gemma Haire won the crowd over with her bubbly ‘pro-life and proud’ stage personality and kept the cheers, chants and applause going even through the intermittent bursts of torrential rain!
Her fellow MC Caitriona Forde explained why personhood was the theme of this year’s rally. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International are doing everything they can to get rid of our pro-life laws which recognise the personhood of the unborn child, namely sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person 1861. There is also a concerted campaign in the Republic of Ireland to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution. If the 8th Amendment is repealed, unborn children south of the border would be stripped of all protection. Even though the battle is intensifying, we have God on our side and we will keep marching forward in our fight to protect mothers and their unborn children from the evil of abortion.
Guest speakers at the rally included Fionnuala McArdle whose baby girl, Meabh, was born very early at 23 weeks and 1 day and weighed just 1 lb. Meabh was given a 0.1% chance of survival but defied the odds and is now thriving at 8 months’ old. Fionnuala spoke from the heart about how important it is to “fight for your baby” and to always have hope, and shared how grateful she was for the staff in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, the organiser of 40 Days for Life in Birmingham and co-director of the March for Life UK, thanked the pro-life movement in Ireland for their loving dedication to saving mothers and babies, pointing to the steady decrease in the number of women travelling from Ireland to Britain for abortion.
Life institute’s Niamh Ui Bhriain slammed Amnesty International for their ferocious campaign to bring abortion into both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and shamed every politician who agrees with the killing of unborn children with disabilities by declaring them a “coward”.
Rachael McEvoy and Gemma Haire then took the stage to promote Youth for Life NI’s upcoming summer roadshow!
For the final speaker of the day, the Rocky theme tune, “Eye of the Tiger”, boomed through the speakers and the crowd went wild!
Bernadette Smyth assured her listeners that although the battle to protect our unborn children from the scourge of abortion is getting fiercer, with God on our side, we will win.
“We will defeat abortion for mother and babies, north and south, across all divides, and we will demand a better answer than abortion, because killing a helpless child cannot be where the answer lies. But we must be prepared to fight this battle head on, and it will call for much sacrifice and commitment from us all.
“Deuteronomy 20: 1-4 said, ‘For the Lord your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.’ With the help of God, we will not grow weary or give up because the battle truly belongs to the Lord, and this battle isn't over until we say it's over and ultimately it isn't over until we win!”
Precious Life would like to thank all the wonderful people who braved the rainy weather to be at the All-Ireland Rally for Life on Saturday. Thanks to the generous donations and prayers of our supporters, we were able to ‘pull out all the stops’ for the 10th Annual All-Ireland Rally for Life. Thanks be to God, by pulling off such a lively and colourful rally this year, we were able to show our politicians, the media, and the whole world that Ireland still shines, and will continue to shine, as the “jewel in the crown of the pro-life movement”.