Ruth Coppinger speaks at Savita protest

Easter Monday night’s vigil in Tyrrelstown, west Dublin, for the slain 15 year old Nigerian lad, Toyosi Shitta-bey, was as uplifting as it was desperately sad.

The attendance of about 1,500 braved the unseasonal, biting cold to pay their tributes and make a powerful statement about the kind of society in which they want to live.

Forty-four years ago at a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, a group of transsexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens, lesbians, and gay men fought back against their constant persecution by the New York Police Department and inadvertently started the modern fight for gay liberation. They would not believe the progress that queer people have made in the last 44 years!

In April of this year, the government parties, including the Labour Party that claims to have a pro-choice position, shamefully rejected a bill to legislate for the X Case, introduced by Socialist Party TD, Clare Daly. The persistent conservatism of the political establishment was exposed and women in Ireland (like the estimated 150,000 women who have travelled abroad to access a termination since 1980 before them), continue to suffer the consequences.