Action Committee

In May 1972, the May Abortion Action Committee was formed in response to a call for international actions on May 5th. A successful march was organised on that day of about 400 people. The committee seeing that this march brought the issue of abortion clearly into public focus, then formed the Abortion Action Committee to continue this work. Another march was organised on July 28th and educational activities were carried out for the remainder of 1972. These actions sparked a lot of interest amongst women and helped to make abortion one of the issues taken up during the election period. The most significant result of 1972 marches was that they legitimised the abortion rights movement by bringing it out into the public eye, and encouraged a broader range of organisations to support its aims. The mounting support for repeal of the laws in this country is in large due to the publicity which was created by those marches and associated activities that went with them.

Early this year it was decided to change [unclear: th] name to the Women's Abortion Action [unclear: Com] mittce. It was felt that this would enable [unclear: mo] women to see that the repeal of the abortion laws was an issue that directly concerned [unclear: the]

A panel on abortion was organised on [unclear: Inte] national Women's Day, March 8th at which speakers from the Values Party, the Law Faculty, University Feminists, Young Socialists, The Training College Labour Club and [unclear: the] Women's Abortion Action Committee gave their views on why the laws should be [unclear: repeal] A picket outside Parliament followed in conjunction with women from the National [unclear: Orga] isation of Women.

From the actions on International [unclear: Women'] Day a national march was launched for April 13th. The Women's Abortion Action [unclear: Commit] acting on this has undertaken educational activities, wide sponsorship and advertising [unclear: for] the march.