Parents for Choice will protest at maternity hospitals across Ireland, including outside University Maternity Hospital Limerick, today, Saturday April 22, against the decision of Minister Simon Harris to grant ownership of the National Maternity Hospital to the Sisters of Charity.
“As parents, we are protesting to protect our maternity care and our daughters’ future care. We want to ensure that healthcare facilities paid for by the people of Ireland are accountable to and run by the people of Ireland,” said Parents for Choice spokesperson Sinéad Redmond. “This decision by the state to grant ownership to an order of nuns of our National Maternity Hospital is unjustifiable. A national service belongs in public, not private hands.”
Redmond continues: “Many of us in Parents for Choice are lone mothers. Many of us have birthed in this hospital. It is not long ago that women like us and our babies would have been locked up by this order of nuns in their laundries. It is a mark of disrespect to survivors of these institutions, still owed reparations by this order, and to the women of Ireland, to give them ownership of our National Maternity Hospital. We call on the minister to reverse this decision, and to implement a modern, transparent system of ownership and governance of our national maternity hospital.”
Parents for Choice campaign for access to a full range of reproductive choices, and bodily autonomy for people who are pregnant, whether they wish to continue the pregnancy or not. This includes repeal of the Eighth Amendment, reform of the HSE National Consent Policy and access to free, safe and legal abortion.
