The Alliance for Choice Group, an umbrella body of pro-choice bodies, has condemned an attempt by anti-abortion campaigners to disrupt a meeting marking the 20th anniversary of the first Constitutional amendment on abortion.
Eight men and two women from the Youth Defence group "attempted to break up" the press conference in Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel at which the Alliance for Choice called for the removal of the article which outlaws abortion in the State.
Representatives of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), Cherish, Well Woman, the ICCL, WERRC, the National Women's Council, the Cork Women's Right to Choose Group, the Alliance for Choice and Labour MEP Mr Prionsias De Rossa attended.
The alliance called for the removal of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed on September 7th 1983.
However, protesters from the Youth Defence group entered the press conference waving banners containing pictures of aborted foetuses and shouting abuse at members of the Alliance for Choice who were taking part.
Ms Sinéad Kennedy of Alliance for Choice said: "We condemn the violent and intimidatory actions of these Youth Defence people in their efforts to break up our press conference. While we disagree entirely with what they say, we would never attack them in the way they acted today in the Shelbourne.
"They have no right to prevent other people expressing their views. They showed today their intolerance to those they disagree with, and to women who choose to have abortions. They will not stop us campaigning for the removal of the 8th Amendment, and for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland."
Mr Eoghan de Faoite of Youth Defence was one of those who disrupted the press conference. Asked why the organisation had used such tactics, he told ireland.comit was because it wanted to ensure the pro-choice alliance did not "dominate the airwaves" in their attempt to "spread their own abortion propaganda".
Mr de Faoite said he believed the alliance did not represent the wishes of the majority of the Irish people, who had "continually rejected" any attempts to introduce abortion here. The Youth Defence campaigner defended his group's right to disrupt the Alliance for Choice press conference, stating that it would not have been necessary to do so if "the Irish media were fair in their coverage of the abortion debate".
He said people should be shown "the reality of abortion".
Asked whether the reality was not that thousands of Irish women were forced to travel to Britain for abortions each year, Mr de Faoite said nobody could put an exact figure on the number of women who did this. He challenged the figures, stating that abortion clinics exaggerated them because they wanted to make more money and were therefore creating "a false demand".
Mr de Faoite said he had never met a woman who had had an abortion and did not regret it and he added there should be more services available here so women did not take the abortion option.
Asked about cases of rape or where a teenage girl became pregnant, Mr de Faoite said abortion was a second violation of that woman's body. He said it was "about time" the Alliance for Choice "started listening to what the Irish people are telling them".