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# speaking of imelda
Pro-choice activists tie pair of giant red knickers to Dáil gates
The knickers had a message calling for the 8th amendment to the constitution to be removed.
Updated 7.50pm
A FEMINIST PERFORMANCE group scaled the gates outside Leinster House last night to tie a giant pair of red knickers to them.
On the knickers was the message: “Women are not breeding machines. The time to Repeal the 8th is now”.
The London-based group came to public attention earlier this year when they confronted the Taoiseach with a pair of red knickers during a Fine Gael dinner.
They said their latest actions were “aimed to highlight the ongoing and disastrous interference of the Irish State in pregnant people’s personal and bodily autonomy”.
The group travelled from London to Dublin yesterday, distributing ‘stickers4choice’ to people on the train and ferry.
They held up a banner at the Dublin ferry terminal announcing: ‘Welcome to Ireland where women are treated as vessels”.
Their #knickersforchoice campaign began in September 2014.
The 8th Amendment
Their actions came after Deputy Clare Daly’s private members’ bill on repealing the eighth amendment was defeated.
It also emerged earlier this week that a woman is being kept on life support because she is in the second trimester of a pregnancy. The 8th Amendment gives equal status to the life of the unborn and the mother.
Health Minister Leo Varadkar said earlier this week that women’s lives are put at risk because of Ireland’s laws on abortion.
The Government press office said it would not be commenting on the incident.
Read: Joan Burton: Our abortion laws do not serve women well>
Read: Taoiseach confronted by ‘knicker-brandishing’ protesters during Fine Gael dinner>
