20,000-plus Expected At Dublin March For Choice

Michali Hyams from the Abortion Rights Campaign said events this year - including the live tweeting of two women who travelled to England to get an abortion - had increased the demand for change and this, in turn, will lead to increased turnout.

The march will take place this Saturday from 1.30PM at the Garden of Remembrance. Abortion Rights Campaign will also be hosting events after the march at Filmbase on Crooked Street where people who have travelled for abortions or who have taken pills will be able to speak about their stories.

There has been great reaction both on the news stands and on social media to the Hot Press Repeal The 8th Special issue, which is currently on the news stands – with Jess Kavanagh on the front making the historic demand “Give me back my body."

“This is a hugely important civil rights issue,” Niall Stokes, editor, said. “Over the years, the treatment of women in Ireland, who experience crisis pregnancies, has been utterly scandalous. It is long past the time for the political establishment to recognise that there is something fundamentally wrong with the self-serving idea that we can continue to export our need for abortion services.

“The failure to address the issue is down to political cowardice. Having campaigned on the issue for many years in Hot Press, it is heartening to see the huge shift that has taken place in attitudes, since the 8th Amendment was introduced back in 1983. The momentum for change is now, I believe, unstoppable.

"Irish people, and Irish women in particular, have had enough of double standards, hypocrisy and evasion. The 8th Amendment to the constitution has to go. But the message which will ring out from the March for Choice is that this should happen sooner rather than later, because every week that we delay risks putting even more women through unnecessary trauma and hardship."