In a first for the north, Precious Life took the pro-life message to a higher level when they used one of the popular Belfast open-top sight-seeing buses to promote the pro-life message last week. Thousands of people from all over the island of Ireland who were in Belfast for Christmas shopping were able to 'see the sight' of their message - "Life is Precious".

Precious Life also staged a demonstration outside the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Belfast last Friday 11 December, in protest against abortions which were carried out in the hospital. We plan to stage similar protests at other hospitals in the New Year.

The protests follow the release of official figures from the Department of Health in November which revealed that 92 abortions were carried out in Northern Ireland during 2008. Precious Life have called for the circumstances behind the abortions to be opened to public scrutiny and investigated by the police.

In a statement to the media, Director of the Precious Life Bernadette Smyth said that abortion was illegal in the province and that "It is a very serious offence to cause the death of an unborn child. The only defence medical staff have is to prove the death of the child occurred as an unintentional result of providing life saving treatment to the mother.”

“We have evidence that unborn babies are being intentionally killed by abortion in the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital simply because they may be disabled. We held this protest today to expose this illegal practice.”

After the hour long protest, Precious Life moved their demonstration to the Belfast office of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and then moved to the open-top bus. Car after car at the busy junction of Howard Street and Great Victoria Street "honked their horns" in support of the pro-life message.

See photos from Precious Life's bus here: