An estimated 10,000 activists flooded the streets of Dublin on Saturday to protest Ireland’s stringent abortion policies. The predominantly Catholic country has a total ban on all abortion services, with a narrow exception in cases where a pregnancy may threaten a woman’s life. But the recent death of Savita Halappanavar — the 31-year-old Indian woman who died of blood poisoning after an Irish hospital refused to terminate her pregnancy — highlights the fact that women in Ireland struggle to access reproductive health services even when their lives may be at stake. Halappanavar’s tragic story is quickly becoming an international controversy, prompting the Irish government to promise to reexamine its abortion policy.

PHOTOS: Thousands Of Reproductive Rights Advocates March In Protest Of Ireland’s Abortion Ban (via ThinkProgress)