The battle for buffer zones:
More than two decades of discontent around abortion clinics
Buffer Zone
An area around an abortion clinic where certain activities are banned; neither pro-abortion nor anti-abortion demonstrations are permitted.
On 24 June 2020 Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, presented her Private Members Bill to the House of Commons seeking to introduce buffer zones around all abortion clinics in the UK.
Organised vigils have been taking place outside abortion clinics since the 1990s and over the past two decades there has been increasing support for legislative action to prevent women being harassed or intimidated at these facilities.
It is currently possible to create a buffer zone around an individual clinic using a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) but this is to be done on a case by case basis and it takes several months to compile the evidence to request one. PSPOs last three years and require evidence that antisocial behaviour has had a persistent detrimental impact on the area.
This can be hard to prove in the context of anti-abortion protests since some anti-choice activists prefer to move from clinic to clinic instead of staking out one venue for a prolonged period of time.
In 2018, Dr Huq’s Ealing constituency became the first council to implement a PSPO ‘buffer zone’ around their Marie Stopes clinic which prevented demonstrations or ostensible praying within 100m of the site. Since then Richmond has also had a buffer zone put in place with Manchester and Birmingham currently reviewing respective case evidence.
This uneven regulation has been criticised by campaigners who brand the selective protection as unfair. BPAS recorded 49 clinics nationwide being affected by protests, as of August 2020.
Dr Huq said: “Women should not be in an uneven patchy postcode lottery in order to be able to access harassment-free reproductive healthcare. This is a national problem that requires a national solution.”
Dr Huq’s bill was characterised by Congleton's Conservative MP, Fiona Bruce, as ‘dangerous’ and ‘regressive’ on the grounds that it threatened freedom of speech.
Nevertheless, Dr Huq triumphed with 213 votes in favour and 47 against.
If the bill is passed, the UK will mirror the protection systems in place across states in Australia and Canada. The latter has had abortion clinic protection laws in place as early as 1995.
The second reading is scheduled for 25 September 2020.
"This is about the rights of vulnerable women seeking access to healthcare in safety, anonymity, and dignity"
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 24, 2020
Labour's Rupa Huq is proposing a bill to ban demonstrations outside abortion clinicshttps://t.co/czGxmBwOKl pic.twitter.com/9kGnU2E7K0
“One was blocking the entrance gate, handing out/forcing leaflets upon people entering. Three others standing opposite with holy sign, praying. Extremely distressing for my daughter, who is already suffering from extreme anxiety. It is also intimidating and judgemental.”
“[The protesters were] standing outside the entrance – tried to hand us things. [It made me feel] ashamed, angry, misunderstood. We have tried for a long time, including IVF to have this baby – this outcome was not what we wanted.”
“[The protesters were] handing out leaflets and rosaries. I haven’t stopped crying since I came in. I was upset and scared anyway and this nearly made me turn around and go home.”
Public affairs and advocacy manager at BPAS, Rachael Clarke, launched the Back Off campaign in 2014 to address the issue of women being harassed outside clinics.
The campaign comprises of talking to local councils, health care centres, and the staff at their clinics to minimise the impact of these activities on patients. This process involves collecting hundreds of patient accounts each week to be used as evidence for protection measures.
Over the years BPAS has recorded many concerning incidents including demonstrators filming clients entering the clinic, calling people murderers, telling them they are going to hell, obstructing their paths, following patients to and from their cars, questioning them, distributing false information, and leaving baby clothes in hedges outside the clinics.
Ms Clarke and Dr Huq have both expressed concern over escalating behaviour which they fear may begin to emulate more extreme action taken in America such as booby-trapping cars.
Anna Veglio-White, founder of the pro-choice, anti-harassment organisation SisterSupporter responsible for the PSPO in Ealing, said: “There’s a very unique context to that situation. Obviously, if someone is grabbing you and calling you a murderer, that’s physical and verbal assault. However, other more insidious things like whispering under your breath ‘are you having a boy or a girl’ or ‘how far along are you’, if you take that out of context that’s not harassment but if you put it at the gate of a clinic and a stranger says this to a pregnant person, then that is very clearly determined to cause you distress but it’s not covered in the law right now.”
In 2018, Sajid Javid decided not to implement buffer zones outside clinics in England and Wales following a public consultation.
He concluded that most anti-abortion protesters were passive in nature so nationwide buffer zones would not be a proportionate response and claimed harassment laws were sufficient to deal with any adverse behaviour.
Ms Clarke and Ms Veglio-White both criticised his decision, citing a report which found more than 20,000 women were being harassed each year and lamented that Mr Javid's voting record shows he has never voted in a pro-choice way.
Ms Veglio-White also pointed out that current harassment laws require a person to have been harassed by the same person multiple times but most people attending the clinics will only go once so this law automatically does not apply.
As part of the bid to create a PSPO in Richmond, BPAS included a cache of harassment evidence.
The graphs illustrate the data gathered from patients and visitors about their experiences outside the clinics taken over a period of 30 days.
Handing out leaflets was the most common activity recorded during the time-frame with standing and staring at people as they entered the clinic the second most common.
These activities resulted in the dominant feeling being one of discomfort followed by feeling judged and guilty.
Incident logs are routinely kept by abortion clinics to be used as evidence of harassment.
- Seen here, the Ealing incident log before they created the PSPO buffer zone -
"After being harassed at a clinic, a lot of people will be going in for a medical procedure. Any kind of surgical procedure is not a pleasant experience, you're then very unlikely to want to go to a police station and file a report after everything else. There should be that protection in place already. It's the national health service and people should be protected while they're using it."
However, not everybody is pleased with Dr Huq’s bill and the prospect of national buffer zones.
Margaret Leahy has been a part of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants (Helpers UK), one of the groups who operate around abortion clinics, since 2007 and categorically opposes the bill.
The groups deny that there has ever been any harassment and insist they are only there to peacefully pray for people and to offer practical, emotional, and financial help for women who have nobody to turn to.
Ms Leahy said: “There is no law in the UK that prevents anyone from standing on the streets peacefully praying and offering members of the public leaflets. Buffer zones outside abortion clinics are an assault on civil freedom of movement and speech.”
Ms Clarke insists that this is more complex than a freedom of speech issue and highlights how these demonstrations impact a woman’s Article 8 right to Privacy and a Family Life in addition to the rights of women to access legal medical care. These factors have been recognised in relation to Ealing and Richmond and upheld by the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court when appealed by the anti-abortion groups.
Ms Clarke said: “We don’t have any opinions at all on people trying to change the law on abortion on highstreets, on the internet, trying to campaign with their local MPs, going to parliament square… our only issue is that it shouldn’t be done outside the clinic gates.”
Helpers UK have had a strained relationship with the pro-choice groups for many years and the police are sometimes invited as a mediator. Ms Leahy described one instance when umbrellas were held up to block them from view. She added: "It is only in recent times that militant groups have started to oppose our witness, infiltrate our processions and stand in front of us with open umbrellas. The police are often present, when these militant groups turn out. If we were guilty of criminal acts, there would be police records to prove this. There are none.”
Despite the tension between the groups, Ms Leahy says she respects their point of view and says they pray for the members of the pro-choice group: “They obviously sincerely believe that we shouldn’t be there and so we have to respect their point of view but not accept it and just go away because they don’t like it. We were for years in Ealing before SisterSupporter came along. We were there for over 20 years, quietly.”
Leaflets given out by The Good Counsel Network, one of several anti-abortion groups who operate outside clinics.
These leaflets have been critisised for giving out false information. The anti-abortion groups maintain all their information has been checked by industry leaders and to their knowledge, none of it is misleading or incorrect.
The NHS website states that there is currently no evidence for a causal relationship between breast cancer and abortion in individuals.
In the past year, Marie Stopes and BPAS have both observed increased anti-abortion activity in the West Country as well as several more remote towns - instead of the more customary big cities. Another emerging trend is Evangelical street preachers with headsets, microphones, and speakers. This is concerning for pro-choice campaigners because these protesters tend to be less predictable and more inclined to exhibit verbal aggression, such as calling patients and staff murderers.
Protests have been proving especially problematic now because of the coronavirus threat. There have been reports of people standing outside clinics without masks, blocking the pavement, and trying to hand people things.
Due to lockdown measures the abortion pills have been made available to take from home following a telephone or video consultation. However, many people still need to attend the clinics in person.
Despite the numerous setbacks over the years, Ms Clarke and the BPAS team remain positive, she added: "I'm optimistic. I think there is a lot of support out there."
SisterSupporter and BPAS are currently raising support and campaigning for Dr Huq's bill but insist they will not be deterred by another knock-back should it occur.
Dr Huq urges those who agree with buffer zones to contact their local MP to request their support.
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