Anti-abortion protesters harass women – I'm fighting to ban them from clinics

I can’t imagine what is must be like to be harassed simply for having an abortion.

Not knowing her circumstances, experiences or health, protestors hassled a woman leaving an abortion clinic in Richmond, my constituency, in 2017. They carried placards displaying horrific images of foetuses. They followed her down the road, praying loudly for her salvation.

Abortion has been legal in England since 1967 – yet incidents like this still occur. Since September 2018, 44 clinics and hospitals around the UK have experienced anti-abortion protests. Each on is one too many. That is why I want to change the law.

In just one month in 2018, the clinic in Richmond received 323 written complaints from women and those accompanying them detailing the negative impact of protestors.

According to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the victimised women reported being told by anti-abortion protesters to choose life rather than murder. One woman said that her daughter, who already suffers from severe anxiety, was blocked from entering the clinic by protestors forcefully handing out leaflets. Another said the protestors made her feel “ashamed, angry and misunderstood” as she and her partner had been trying for a baby for long time and “this outcome was not what we wanted”.

Abortion is a contentious issue, and it is right that we continue to discuss it. But women have the right to choose, and to do so freely. Demonstrations on the steps of abortion clinics – a blatant act to create fear and intimidation – remove that right. This form of protest is not about changing the law or putting pressure on lawmakers. It is nothing more than bullying women when they are often at their most vulnerable; no decent society should permit it.

I was therefore extremely pleased when the Liberal Democrat-led Richmond Council took action against the clinic protests. After “vigils” were held almost every day since the clinic opened in 2013, the council launched a consultation seeking views on the introduction of a buffer zone. They received over 3,000 responses. More than 80 per cent of people said that the behaviour around the clinic had a detrimental effect on them or others in the local area. In the end, the council implemented a 100-metre exclusion zone outside the clinic in March 2019.

Councillor Liz Jaeger, Richmond Council cabinet member for community safety said that the Public Space Protection Order. “strikes the right balance, protecting the human rights of the patients and staff of the BPAS Clinic to use the services and go to work without fear and in privacy”.

Yet while I am glad that women in Richmond are now protected, it is not enough. Only Richmond and Ealing councils have managed to implement safe zones, largely because of the quantity of evidence required to create one. How many more women will be chased down the street before all women seeking an abortion are safe from harassment?

What we have now is a postcode lottery: whilst women in Richmond are now protected, those in other parts of the country who are not. Furthermore, implementing safe zones and upholding them in the courts uses up precious local government resources.

That is why I am proposing a new law to prohibit anti-abortion protests within 150 metres of all abortion clinics in the UK. It is time to implement a national solution to protests that seek to undermine a woman’s right to make decisions, free from harassment, about her body and her future.

Sarah Olney is the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond.