Opponents vow to regroup, amid calls for Ulster reform

For John McGuirk, communications director at antiabortion group Save the 8th, the vote was “a tragedy of historic proportions”.

“Abortion was wrong yesterday,” his group wrote on Facebook. “It remains wrong today.” McGuirk found solace in the fact that his hometown voted overwhelmingly in favour of the abortion ban.

Cora Sherlock, a spokeswoman for LoveBoth, an antiabortion campaign, told Irish broadcaster RTE that it “is a very sad day for Ireland, that people have voted for abortion.”

She said: “I think this is only the beginning of a really, really strong grassroots movement with the pro-life campaign and their supporting groups. We will regroup, we will reorganise to ensure the safety of mothers and babies in Ireland.”

Ciaran Cannon, Ireland’s Minister for the Diaspora and International Development, announced his ‘no’ vote on Twitter. “I voted ‘no’ today because I believe deeply in the inalienable right to life of all humans, unborn and born. It’s not a right we are entitled to deny to others.”

But Cannon also said he respected the results of the referendum and would “vote to implement the will of our people, as expressed today.”

Meanwhile, British ministers are facing pressure to relax abortion laws in Northern Ireland.

MPs who have been campaigning for a relaxation of the law in Ulster pledged to table amendments to the British Government’s proposed Domestic Abuse Bill, forcing a change. The move, backed by a number of Conservatives, would cause a headache for Prime Minister Theresa May, whose Government is being propped up by the Democratic Unionist Party, which strongly opposes the reforms.

Stella Creasy, a Labour MP, called on Penny Mordaunt, the Women and Equalities minister, to “stand up to colleagues in government stopping reform”. Nicky Morgan, a Tory predecessor of Mordaunt, said that she would support Creasy’s planned amendments to the Bill. Morgan, a former Education Secretary, was one of dozens of signatories to a letter in March calling for the Government to use the bill to give women in Northern Ireland “comprehensive access to abortion in their own country”.