Anti-abortion activists have struck back against Ireland’s introduction of abortion services by picketing a clinic and by launching potentially misleading websites that mimic the state’s support service for unplanned pregnancies. A group holding placards protested outside a doctor’s office in Galway on Thursday in an effort to deter women from seeking abortion pills just three days after abortion services became legal. “I do find that this is public harassment, effectively, of people who are trying to access abortion services here,” Ailbhe Smyth from the Together for Yes campaign told Newstalk radio station on Friday. Ireland started rolling out abortion services on 1 January in the wake of the referendum vote last year to lift a near-total ban on abortion, a landmark in the country’s social liberalisation. Most of the state’s 19 maternity units, plus clinics run by other organisations, are expected to start offering abortion services within weeks.

Source: The Guardian January 04, 2019 18:18 UTC