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Original poster

Anti-abortion protesters outside clinics

37 replies

VillaVillekulla · 20/10/2014 16:25

Sorry if this has already been posted but there's a particularly nasty anti-abortion campaign going on outside a London GP clinic (which offers medical abortions) at the moment. Protesters are harassing women going in and out of the clinic and holding up pictures of aborted foetuses. There's a petition about it here and info on how to write to the local MP.

I'm not sure what the solution is tbh. I wouldn't want to propose anything that curtails anyone's right to protest or to free speech (eg. ban protests near clinics). But nor can I accept that women should be subject to this kind of harassment on their way into a clinic.

OP posts:
ballsballsballs · 20/10/2014 21:14

Signed.

Original poster
VillaVillekulla · 20/10/2014 21:04

But they would say they're not stopping them (although that's clearly what they hope to do). They say they're just informing women of what abortion entails because they a) think women are too stupid to know this and b) believe abortion providers are hoodwinking women by not telling them what happens to the foetus.

I think it is about freedom of speech. Don't get me wrong, I abhor these people and I hate the fact that their right to freedom of speech impinges on women's right to seek an abortion free from harassment BUT I still don't see how they can be stopped from doing it without setting a scary legal precedent in terms of curtailing freedom to protest.

OP posts:
LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 20/10/2014 20:53

But is freedom of speech even a relevant argument? Women are visiting legal clinics which offer legal services. I don't think we'd even consider the freedom of speech argument for people who, for eg, stood outside schools telling children they shouldn't access education. Or standing outside libraries telling OAPs off for wanting large print books. (Sorry to any gransnetters reading!)

These women are doing nothing wrong, illegal or even out of the ordinary. Someone's right to free speech doesn't trump my right to go to the doctors, or to take DCs to school, or to go to the library in peace, without harassment.

(Of course I will sign too)

Original poster
VillaVillekulla · 20/10/2014 20:09

Thanks all for signing. I agree it seems like it should be covered by harassment laws but I have zero legal expertise. Don't you have to harass the same person repeatedly for it to be harassment? Or did I make that up?

It is scary to see US tactics being imported over here.

OP posts:
PuffinsAreFicticious · 20/10/2014 18:20

The petition not three titian.

Wtf iPad?

mimithemindfull · 20/10/2014 18:01

Percy - well said.
Villa - signed

RightyTightyLeftyLoosey · 20/10/2014 17:24

I hate this so much. As with PP, I believe in everyone's right to freedom of speech but these people are just nasty and medieval.

I have had to make this very very difficult choice, and it was hard enough without encountering pictures of foetuses/ hateful angry people.

The mindset of these people just makes me Confused and Sad

PuffinsAreFicticious · 20/10/2014 17:12

Thee titian is asking for a US style buffer zone, so that women, and other people who merely wish to visit a GP for something unconnected with women's health, can do so without some utter loon waving pictures of dismembered foetuses in their faces.

Protest away, try and prevent women accessing healthcare, but don't do it outside a bloody GP surgery, this isn't Saudi Arabia, and sadly for these arseholes, women have rights here.

PercyHorse · 20/10/2014 16:43

Signed.

This isn't America. They can fuck right off with free speech arguments. They have no right to be harassing women.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 20/10/2014 16:38

I'm surprised it doesn't contravene harassment laws because, as Thurlow says, if you want to protest about abortion the logical place to do it would be outside parliament, the place where people with the power to change laws are located. Protesting outside clinics just seems pointless, unless they actually are hoping to bully women into changing their minds.

bumpiesonamission · 20/10/2014 16:36

I agree in freedom of speech and of choice, but to subject women who are very unlikely to have made the choice easily to harassment is disgusting in my mind Sad

Thurlow · 20/10/2014 16:32

It's a very difficult one, isn't it?

Logically, anti-abortion protestors should be taking their case up with the government, as the people who control the legislation. Abortion is legal, therefore the logical focus of an anti-abortion campaign should be on changing the law, rather than trying to shame and scare already upset women and girls going through a difficult time.

But I suppose to some anti-abortion protesters it's no different to people standing with placards outside of Nestle or Huntingdon Life Sciences.

I'm with you in that yes, in some ways it is all about the right to free speech.

But christ I find the idea of people standing around the intimidating women trying to go to their appointment absolutely repugnant.

Maybe it comes under harassment laws?