History: 2015
Child or Choice advert massive success
In March, we released a video to accompany our “Child or Choice” campaign that quickly went viral. In a matter of days the video was viewed thousands of times. Since its release, it has now been viewed more than 600,000 of times on social media.
The video celebrates the fact that women are free to make so many choices about what they want to do and how they want to live their lives. However, it succinctly and powerfully shows why abortion isn’t just another choice – because there’s a child involved, another human being with human rights, who deserves to be protected.
The video follows a young woman as she talks about her choices: where she’ll go to college, what she wants to be, her decisions about her life, from music to clothes to career. “It’s my choice, and my life” she says. Then she pauses and holds up a photo of an unborn baby. “But abortion?” she says. “She’s NOT a choice, she’s a child”.
Protest tells amnesty conference "Abortion is Torture"
August saw a massive turnout as we protested Amnesty International’s Annual Conference in response to their unprecedented and unethical campaign to force abortion into Ireland.
The protestors told Amnesty delegates at the Amnesty Conference that “Abortion Is Torture” and that Amnesty’s campaign for abortion “is unconscionable and incompatible with a genuine human-rights stance”.
Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute said Amnesty’s position was incompatible with a genuine human rights stance. She said...
You can’t claim to be a human rights protector and then campaign for the lives of innocent children can be brutally ended. The progressive answer to a crisis pregnancy is to provide support and to help both mother and baby. Abortion is a medieval solution, and has no place in a society where human rights are respected
She said that more than 240,000 people, to date, had signed a petition calling on Amnesty to stop pushing abortion on Ireland and other countries, and that Amnesty were losing credibility and damaging their mission because of their strident abortion stance. “Amnesty Ireland want abortion-on-demand made legal, and they want the constitutional rights of unborn babies to be completely stripped away. This makes no sense. As human rights abuses go, dismembering children must be one of the worst infringements possible. And as innocent victims go, unborn babies who can’t even raise their own eyes to defend themselves must be the most helpless victims imaginable,” she said. “Abortion is torture. Killing unborn children is wrong. This is Human Rights 101, and Amnesty are scoring an epic fail.”
Massive turnout at All Ireland Rally for Life in Dublin
The 2015 All Ireland Rally for Life in Dublin was a massive success. People from every corner of the country, from every walk of life, came out in droves to support the unborn and call on the government to continue to protect women and babies. The Rally was a massive, inspiring, wonderful event which showed the strength of pro-life feeling in this country.
The turnout was simply amazing, in fact the crowd doubled our expectations, proving that the commitment of the pro-life majority has not waned since the crisis of 2013, and ensuring that the Vote Pro Life initiative can rely on an army of volunteers to impact awareness in the next election.
On the Rally route, several senior Garda acknowledged that the Rally turnout had exceeded the initial expectation of 15,000 people and as the Rally made its way to the Dáil, the estimates of the top-ranking Gardai present was of between 25 and 30,000 people. Looking at the photos of the huge crowd filling O’Connell Street, it would be difficult to disagree with those estimates.
Life Canvass launches in Ireland
The Autumn/Winter 2015, the groundbreaking Life Canvass was launched in Ireland. In only a few weeks, the the Life Canvass was well underway as more and more volunteers joined and began to engage the nation in an real and meaningful conversation about abortion - on the streets, at churches, and in door-to-door canvasses.
The effort of the Life Canvass is already starting to bear fruit as volunteers are having more encouraging interactions with the Irish public all across the country.
The growth of the Life Canvass has been very encouraging. The message of the Canvass is so positive and groundbreaking that seeing so many people coming out to training sessions (in Sligo, Navan, Roscommon, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Roscommon, Galway and Waterford in only the first few weeks)- interested in volunteering- and witnessing the great outcome that our volunteers are already experiencing, lets us know that the Life Canvass has the potential for enormous success.
Canvassing door to door on Wednesday night in Cork City. "Outstanding night" according to our volunteer candidates
