Hundreds of pro-life campaigners protested outside the first ever private abortion clinic in Northern Ireland as it opened to the public on Thursday.
Around 200 protesters brandishing placardssaying “Life is precious” and showing photographsof foetuses were gathered outside theprivately run Marie Stopes clinic in central Belfast.
One banner read: “Abortion? The people of Northern Ireland say ‘not in my name’.”
Police have warned the media to avoid photographing or filming the faces of any clients or staff entering the clinic, which is housed in a nondescript building.
The Police Service ofNorthern Ireland saidany film or pictures identifying anyone going into the building would be a breach of British law and the European Convention on HumanRights.
One protester, James Dowson, who had travelled from Scotland to represent the UK LifeLeague, said the clinic was “a money-making business” and “a gruesome deadly business thatdeals with the killing of unborn children”.