Seismic wave will hit NI, says pro-choice protestors

A campaign of civil disobedience to the country’s tight restrictions is due to be launched with a bus journey from the city to Londonderry on Thursday and protests outside the offices of the main political parties including the DUP.

A group calling itself Solidarity with Repeal held a demonstration at Belfast City Hall on Monday evening following the resounding Irish yes vote to liberalisation. It was attended by several hundred protestors bearing placards and chanting.

Speaker Eleanor Crossey Malone from Rosa, a socialist feminist movement, said: “The referendum has had a hugely invigorating effect on society in the South and it has already hit the North like a seismic wave, with Theresa May coming under immense pressure to immediately extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.

“We still have a draconian abortion ban in the North and we have a fight ahead of us.”

Rosa has organised action before using what it calls safe but illegal abortion pills obtained on the internet, to prevent politicians from “sweeping the issue under the carpet”.

Ms Crossey Malone added: “We want to highlight how widely these pills are used.”

Event organiser Fiona Ferguson said Ireland’s vote had changed the face of Irish society.