Call for abortion clinic buffer zones throughout Scotland

November 24, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

CNA Staff, Nov 24, 2020 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Pro-choice activists are calling on the Scottish government to ban prayer and public discussion of abortion in the vicinity of the country’s abortion clinics.

“We think that it’s time that the Scottish Government legitimise buffer zones around clinics providing abortion services Scotland-wide,” said Ella Cheney, founder of Back Off Scotland, according to the Edinburgh daily The Scotsman.

“Anti-choice activity outside clinics is incoherent with our right to confidentially access essential medical services – with our right to choose,” she added.

Cheney said that “I have accessed sexual health services and witnessed these groups outside praying. It’s intimidating and made me feel uncomfortable. People have a right to their views but shouldn’t be talking to women about them at the point they are trying to access services.”

Back Off Scotland began with a petition asking Edinburgh to impose a buffer zone preventing pro-life gathering or speech within 150 meters (490 feet) of the Chalmers Sexual Health Centre.

Rachael Clarke of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said that “The current law in Scotland just isn’t sufficient. These groups aren’t violent, but they target individual women and cause them immense distress.”

She said pro-life groups and persons “have every right to hold their opinion. They have every right to campaign, to contact their MSPs, and to share their beliefs. They don’t have a right to infringe women’s privacy and impact their emotional and mental wellbeing at the hospital gate.”

Back Off Scotland’s head of policy, Lucy Grieve, said that “As it stands, the Scottish Government believes that the police already have powers to address the issues of disorder that are potentially raised by clinic protests,” but she maintains “that more robust measures need to be considered.”

The group is preparing to launch a petition seeking a buffer zone around Glasgow abortion clinics as well.

Back Off Scotland is supported by BPAS and the Humanist Society Scotland.

Proposals for buffer zones around abortion clinics throughout England and Wales were rejected as disproportionate by the then-British Home Secretary in September 2018, after finding that most abortion protests are peaceful and passive.

Sajid Javid said that after reviewing the evidence, which included “upsetting examples of harassment … what is clear from the evidence we gathered is that these activities are not the norm, and predominantly, anti-abortion activities are more passive in nature.”

The typical activities of those protesting outside of abortion clinics in England and Wales “include praying, displaying banners and handing out leaflets,” Javid noted.

Javid said that there are already laws in place to protect people against intimidation and harassment in public spaces, including the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which extends to Scotland, and the Public Order Act 1986.

In England, a buffer zone was imposed by Ealing Council, in west London, around a Marie Stopes abortion clinic in April 2018. The zone prevents any pro-life gathering or speech, including prayer, within about 330 feet of the clinic.

The Ealing buffer zone, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in August 2019, was cited by Javid as an example of a local government using civil legislation “to restrict harmful protest activities,” rather than a nationwide policy.

Shortly after the Ealing buffer zone was adopted, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth said that “to remove from the environment of the abortion clinics alternative voices is to limit freedom of choice. Indeed, research shows that many women have been grateful for the last-minute support they have thereby received.”

“The imposition of ‘no-prayer zones’ outside clinics – I mean prayerful vigil, not militant or disruptive action – is unhelpful, unjust and unnecessary,” Bishop Egan said.

Earlier this year the Scottish government introduced a hate crime bill, opposed by the country’s bishops, that would create a crime of stirring up hatred against any of the protected groups covered by the bill, which include race, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity.

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UK court upholds London abortion clinic buffer zone

July 2, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

London, England, Jul 2, 2018 / 12:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The High Court of England and Wales ruled Monday that a buffer zone around an abortion facility in the London borough of Ealing is legal, in a move that will likely encourage similar buffer zones in the United Kingdom.

While the ban was found to interfere with the human rights of pro-life protesters, it was ruled July 2 that the local government had a right to decide it was a “necessary step in a democratic society.”

“There was substantial evidence that a very considerable number of users of the clinic reasonably felt that their privacy was being very seriously invaded at a time and place when they were most vulnerable,” said Justice Turner.

He added that the Ealing council was “entitled to conclude that the effect of the activities of the protesters was likely to make such activities unreasonable and justified the restrictions imposed.”

The “public space protection order” (PSPO) that was passed in April was challenged by Alina Dulgheriu, a woman who was assisted by people she met at a pro-life vigil. Dulgheriu is now the mother of a six-year-old girl.

“I am devastated for those women that since the introduction of the Ealing PSPO, have not been able to access the loving help that I did,” said Dulgheriu after the ruling.

The PSPO effectively bans public prayer and counselors who assist women within 100 meters (330 feet) of the Marie Stopes clinic, a leading abortion provider in London which performs around 7,000 abortions annually.

Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth has said he is “deeply concerned” by the imposition of such “no-prayer zones.”

“To remove from the environment of the abortion clinics alternative voices is to limit freedom of choice. Indeed, research shows that many women have been grateful for the last-minute support they have thereby received,” he said in April.

The High Court ruling comes in the days after the council in Glasgow proposed a motion that would look into the creation of a buffer zone around hospitals and abortion facilities.

This past Lent, there were a series of peaceful protests outside of hospitals and abortion facilities in Glasgow and throughout the U.K. as part of the 40 Days for Life campaign. Now, at least three Glaswegian councillors have supported a motion that would look into the creation of a buffer zone around these hospitals, where protests and prayer vigils would be prohibited.

The motion was proposed by Councilor Elaine McSporran of the Scottish National Party. McSporran argued for the creation of a buffer zone to “allow individuals entering [the hospital] to feel safe and without prejudice.”

Although the councillors acknowledged that the prayer vigils and protests were entirely peaceful, and there were no reports of any sort of violent incidents, they support the idea of a buffer due to fears that there could be violence in the future.

“Normally these are peaceful and respectful individuals exercising their rights to protest and, although I am not aware of any incidents, it doesn’t mean that they won’t progress to be so,” said Labour councillor Aileen McKenzie.

It is unclear whether the council has the ability to actually enact this motion and create the buffer zone.

Pro-life groups in Scotland have spoken out against the proposed buffer zone, saying that they have the same right as any other organization to protest for something they believe in.

The buffer zones are “against the principles we hold dear in our democracy,” said John Deighan, Scottish chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the U.K.’s oldest pro-life group. Deighen noted that trade unions are free to protest wherever they wish, and pro-lifers should be allowed to as well.

A similar buffer zone law in the United States was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2014 case McCullen v. Coakley. The court unanimously ruled that the Massachusetts law prohibiting protests and prayers within a 35-foot radius of an abortion facility was a violation of the First Amendment’s right to free speech.

The United Kingdom does not have similar protections of speech.

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