Plans to illuminate Belfast City Hall in celebration of abortion have been halted, following a backlash.
The council decided to seek legal advice after the DUP used a ‘call in’ procedure to object to the building being lit up for International Safe Abortion Day on 28 September.
Over 21,000 people signed a petition against the plans, and protests were organised outside the landmark by pro-life campaigners and the Free Presbyterian Church.
The founder of pro-life group Precious Life, Bernadette Smyth, told those gathered outside the landmark: “We have lights here on this building but they are not green, they’re white. It is the light for life, the light of people who refused to be silent, the light of councillors who stood up and challenged the decision.”
Rev Ian Brown from the Free Presbyterian Church said the protesters were there to “raise witness and be a voice for the voiceless”. He stated: “Commemorating the slaughter of the innocent is reprehensible.
Jim Dowson, founder of the LifeLeague, told journalists covering the main protest that Sinn Fein's effort to celebrate the mass murder of unborn children by turning the City Hall green was an attempt to add insult to injury for the loyalist community, which has made common cause with Catholic opponents of abortion. "We have fought the purveyors of Death every inch of the way here, and we will fight them every inch of the way back until abortion is once again illegal in Northern Ireland. And we will stand with the good people of the Republic to make their unborn babies safe again as well."