Ireland: Enda Kenny Inundated By Tweets Of Women's Periods As #RepealThe8th Pressures For Repeal In Abortion Laws

Irish Women Are Live Tweeting Their Periods To The PM In Abortion Protest

Irish women are taking to Twitter to share details of their menstrual cycles in a call for Prime Minister Enda Kenny to repeal the country's restrictive abortion laws.

Abortion is socially divisive in Ireland where, amid large street protests from both sides of the fraught debate, a complete ban was only lifted in 2013 when terminations were allowed if a mother's life was in danger.

In the call to action, women used the hashtag #RepealThe8th - which refers to the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland - to rally the PM:

Others joined in by supporting the women Tweeting their menstrual cycles:

The Eighth Amendment equates the right to life of a pregnant woman with that of an embryo or foetus. In doing so it criminalises abortion in all cases except where to continue a pregnancy would result in death.

Prime Minister Kenny, a practicing Catholic, was sent plastic fetuses and letters written in blood by pro-life campaigners for bringing in the limited reforms two years ago and has said any further changes will be left to the next government.

His junior coalition partner, Labour, has already said it will campaign at the elections next year to allow abortion for cases such as rape, incest and fatal fetal abnormality.

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