Anti-abortion campaigners spoke of testing the new ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics and some hospitals in England and Wales after it became a criminal offence on October 31 to obstruct or ‘cause harassment, alarm or distress’ to anyone within 150 metres of such a site.
Home Office Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said: “Getting this measure up and running as soon as possible has been one of our priorities and I am proud of everyone involved in getting us here. The idea that any woman is made to feel unsafe or harassed for accessing health services, including abortion clinics, is sickening. This stops today.”
As featured in the November edition of Professional Security magazine, this applies to clinics and private hospitals that are approved under the Abortion Act 1967, and for any NHS hospital that has given notification that it has carried out abortions. Safe access zones were introduced through the Public Order Act 2023, on a free vote in Parliament. The move comes after years of controversy and debate over what if anything to do about anti-abortion demonstrations, including silent vigils (pictured by Mark Rowe, Fitzrovia, central London). Use of a PSPO (public spaces protection order) by a council to enforce a similar ‘zone’ dates from 2018, in Ealing in west London. A similar PSPO in Bournemouth has seen a protester in court.
SPUC view
The pro-life campaign group SPUC has described the rule as illiberal and Orwellian. SPUC held a demonstration at Westminster against the zones in England and Wales; and demo’d similarly outside Holyrood against a similar, though 200m, law in Scotland. The SPUC reported that those on the demo included staff and CEO John Deighan, outside the Houses of Parliament in central London. Some wore orange prison jumpsuits, others held placards.
Michael Robinson, Executive Director of SPUC, said: “This chilling and Orwellian measure is being introduced for ideological reasons. It will be used by aggressive secularist zealots to try and shut down legitimate peaceful vigils and control religious activity, including silent prayer.
“Most ordinary people, regardless of where they stand on the issue of abortion, would think harassing people merely for standing silently on a public pavement, or outside their home if they live within the buffer zone, is heavy-handed and fraught with difficulties. Indeed, the State trying to police silent prayer and thought seems wholly contrary to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly safeguards freedom of religion, allowing anyone to ‘either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance’.
“We are therefore actively consulting legal experts as we believe that the inclusion of silent prayer constitutes a gross intrusion in the right of freedom of religion, free speech and accordingly needs to be properly tested in the courts.”
