PR : Rally for Life: "We must Stop Aborting our future"

Thousands are expected at the Rally for Life in Dublin on Saturday to hear a call to the government to "Stop aborting our future" as abortion rates soar and birth rates collapse - with organisers pointing to housing, cultural failures, and a lack of support, as factors they say need urgent attention. Rally organisers say it will kickstart a national campaign to demand the government establishes an urgent task force on the "spiralling abortion rates". 

Figures released earlier this year show that to the end of February 2025, more than 50,000 abortions have taken place in Ireland, which rally organisers have described as a "grim and heartbreaking new record". 

Sandra Parda of the Rally for Life that the "failure to offer supports to women and to families is leading to spiralling abortion rates while the government turns a blind eye and instead simply focuses endlessly on abortion access". 

"The number of abortions jumped immediately to 6,666 in 2019 - but have now soared to more than 10,000 in 2024, although voters were assured during the 2018 referendum that abortion would be "rare" by leading campaigners including the then Taoiseach," Ms Parda said.  

"We're at a point where abortions rates are soaring and birth rates are collapsing, yet the government is keeping no real data on why this is happening," she added. "We are literally aborting our future, and the government needs to understand what's driving women towards abortion and how we are failing both mother and child by too-often making abortion the only option." 
 
She said that 10,000 abortions a year was clearly a factor in the collapse in birth rates - with 7,000 fewer births in 2024 than in 2018, the year abortion was legalised. "We're being warned now that we won't have enough people to pay for pensions, and that we need to boost immigration to build our workforce, yet the government and the media continues to turn a blind eye to the fact that we are literally aborting our own future and failing mothers and babies," she said. 

The All-Ireland Rally for Life is billed as a colourful celebration of Life and the biggest pro-life event of the year taking place annually in Dublin and now in its 18th year.

Ms Parda said that the Rally would kickstart a national campaign to demand that the government establish an urgent task force to tackle what she described as Ireland's "spiralling abortion rate". 

Statistics from the Department of Health showed that 6,666 abortions took place in 2019, with a further 6,577 in 2020, while 6,700 abortions occurred in Ireland in 2021. The number of abortions jumped to 8,156 in 2022 and then shot up again to 10,033 in 2023 - while date released to Carol Nolan TD shows that 10,441 payments for abortions were made to GPs in 2024. The final total for abortions in 2024 is expected to rise by two hundred or more, given that this is the average number of abortions carried out in hospitals in Ireland each year. The data released to Deputy Nolan also showed that at least 1,742 abortions took place in January and February of 2025. 

Those figures mean that more than 50,000 abortions have taken place since 2019. 

Ms Parda said: "This is an issue the media want to ignore, but how can we be blind to 50,000 lives ended in just over 6 years," she said. "That's more than the total population of Longford. It represents more than 100 schools or thousands of classes of children. It's part of Ireland's future growth and development and innovation ended before birth." 

The All-Ireland Rally for Life meets every year in Parnell Square before marching to Custom House Quay in a colourful display of banners and flags. Amongst this year's speakers are Aontú's Paul Lawless TD and Dr  Haywood Robinson, a former abortionist who now seeks to bring the public and medical professionals to a deeper understanding of the harm caused by abortion, along with Bernadette Smyth of Precious Life , Vicky Wall of Every Life Counts, and barrister and free speech advocate, Grace Sullivan. 

The Rally for Life is organised by Life Institute and Precious Life and is supported by 40 local pro-life groups. 

   

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More information on the Rally is available here