March for Choice, Cork: 30 Secs Video and 5 Photos…

The times are a changing – that much I have to report.  For not a few years I have wished for change to come and to come quickly, but it takes it own course that I’ll admit.

Nevertheless last Saturday’s March for Choice in Cork was proof that change has come in a small though discernible way.  By no mean a big march but nevertheless a march that simply wouldn’t have happened in Cork even a short number of years ago.

One of the outcomes of the Savita Halappanavar tragedy, no doubt. But also a reflection of the fact that many women do not accept the silence around abortion any longer.  Women are now prepared to speak up and speak out; they are also prepared to say that they have had a termination.

At Cork’s March for Choice, speakers such as Ailbhe Smyth and Mary Favier (Doctors For Choice) spoke about the need to move on and remove the 8th Amendment to the Irish constitution – the 8th Amendment in effect bans termination in Ireland in all but very limited and unique circumstances.   But another women also spoke graphically and bravely about her own plight as a victim of rape and about having to travel to the UK for a termination – just a few months ago.  A confession that brought home to those of us present (as ever) that desperate cirucmstances often attend to the matter of choice and abortion.

As I say, a march that just would not have happened on the streets of Cork before.  So 30 secs of video and five photos: