A pastoral message on the issue will be promoted in all 1,360 Catholic parishes in Ireland, highlighting “the equal right to life of a mother and the child”.
In Dublin on Saturday, a “March for Choice” took place, attracting a crowd the Garda estimated at about 2,000.
Attendance included members of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Irish Choice Network and the Irish Feminist Network, as well as members of United Left Alliance and the Labour Party.
They urged that Ireland’s “barbaric and restrictive abortion laws” be changed.
An expert group set up by the Government to propose a response to the European Court of Human Rights’ call for legislation here to give effect to the Supreme Court judgment in the X case is expected to report this month.
The bishops have pointed out that the Government “is under no obligation to legislate for abortion because of the ruling of the European Court” and they expressed concern at “the widespread misinformation about the implications of the December 2010 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in A, B C vs Ireland”.
On August 24th last, the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady told the Edmund Rice Summer School in Waterford that attempts to legalise “any form of abortion in Ireland . . . will be vigorously and comprehensively opposed by many”.
In a subsequent RTÉ radio interview, he said that if the Government decided to legalise abortion, the response would include a “media campaign” and “lobbying public representatives”.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte subsequently remarked that “it would be a retrogressive step if we were to go back to the days of the Catholic Church dictating to elected public representatives how [they] should address an issue”.