Youth Defence members have joined Precious Life in protesting at a conference providing lectures on abortion techniques in Co Down. The conference, hosted by the Family Planning Association and sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, aimed to teach practitioners about the grisly, ugly business of abortion. The schedule shows that speakers will give training in exactly how to perform suction abortions - tearing the child apart with a vacuum operatus - and discuss the 'techniques' of late abortions.

Speaking from outside the hotel Katie Robinson said that the pro-life protest aimed to make sure the hotel, the abortion providers and the wider community knew that this conference was "utterly unacceptable".

Youth Defence welcomed the statement of the Catholic Bishops, who said they "deplored and opposed" the two-day conference and that the event was designed to undermine the rights and welfare of children in the womb and "normalise what is unacceptable".

Ms Robinson said that the bottom line was that the conference should be closed down. "As Youth Defence said in the Irish Times earlier in the week: 'This is not about free speech, we all support that. This conference aims to explain new developments in abortion techniques – it’s about the grim business of killing unborn children.'"

"Abortion is illegal in this country and the conference organisers and the hotel must respect that,” said Ms Robinson. Many of the speakers are associated with Marie Stopes, the international abortion providers who stand charged with the deaths of many women in Third World countries.

Bernadette Smyth, director of Precious Life in Belfast, said: “These abortionists will in fact be discussing training doctors in Ireland on how to kill babies in both early and late stages of pregnancy.”

The hotel has been inundated with calls objecting to the conference for a fortnight, but they refused to cancel the booking.