The 10th anniversary of the X case, in which a young girl, pregnant as a result of rape, was restrained from travelling to Britain for an abortion, was marked by a protest in Dublin on Saturday.
The lunchtime demonstration on O'Connell Bridge was organised by the Alliance for a No Vote, which is urging people to reject the abortion referendum on March 6th because it would deny women who are suicidal as a result of a crisis pregnancy the right to have an abortion in Ireland.
A Yes vote would overturn the Supreme Court decision made in the X case in 1992, which allowed the 14-year-old suicidal rape victim to have an abortion.
Nineteen women, wearing eye masks and white tee-shirts imprinted with the letter X, stood chanting on the bridge in solidarity with the 19 Irish women who travel to Britain for abortions every day.
Among the 19 were Ms Sian Muldowney, one of the students who recently lost a High Court challenge to the Government's proposed mechanism for amending the Constitution in the forthcoming abortion referendum.
The group chanted anti-referendum slogans and were later part of a crowd of a few hundred who took part in a rally for a No vote at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square before marching through O'Connell Street to D'Olier Street, Westmoreland Street and back to the GPO.
The gathering included No Tears stars Maria Doyle-Kennedy and Ruth McCabe.
Addressing the crowd, Ms Cathleen O'Neill of the Alliance said the Taoiseach's claim that rolling back the X case would put no woman's life at risk was "nothing more than a cruel deception".
"A No vote will mean that suicide will remain grounds for abortion here - and nothing more," she claimed. She added that the Government's claim that a No vote would lead to liberal abortion laws in Ireland was "another of the false claims being bandied about".
"Whatever the outcome of this referendum, abortion will remain illegal under the 1983 amendment to the constitution, and another referendum would be required to change that," she said.