The National Women's Council, which is the umbrella organisation for a broad spectrum of women's groups including the Irish Countrywomen's Association and the Catholic Women's Federation, has called for a No vote in the forthcoming abortion referendum.
Its chairwoman Ms Grainne Healy said the 160 women's organisations affiliated to the council had unanimously decided that the legislation being voted on was "a bad thing for women", particularly for women's health.
Ms Healy said the National Women's Council held a consultation process with its affiliated groups, representing some 300,000 Irish women, over the past few months since the text of the proposed referendum Bill was published and all were unanimous in their opposition to the referendum.
"The unanimous position agreed by the women of the National Women's Council is that we should call for a No vote, we should have a campaign and we should issue a leaflet which outlines in the simplest clear terms why it is that this referendum is an attack on women. It is possibly one of the most anti-women activities that any Government in Ireland has sought to bring forward," she said.
Some of the women who felt this way "would be vehemently anti-abortion in all circumstances", she added.
Addressing a rally organised by the Alliance for a No Vote in Dublin on Saturday she said the key reasons women were saying to vote No was because of the impact the Bill would have on the lives and health of Irish women.
"The implications are terrifying," she said.
The issue was " particularly terrifying" for women living in places such as Castletownbere or Donegal.
This was because those women could die during the time it took them to travel from their homes to one of the 16 or 17 approved but unnamed places, which would be provided for pregnant women with a condition which required termination, she said.
She added that the possibility of a 12-year sentence being imposed on women who did not have the money or the support or the contacts to travel to Britain for an abortion was "yet another terrifying prospect".
Ms Healy said the referendum had very specific implications for certain groups of women, in particular women who were raped.
"These women and their lives are realities and attempting to roll back the X case is an attempt to say that women are liars, that we can't trust them, that when a woman is suicidal it is only after she has committed suicide that we will actually believe her. This is a disgrace."
The council will formally launch its campaign for a No vote on Thursday afternoon next in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.