"coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want".

[TemporaryPosition]

I know I'll be told I am being unreasonable.

But I feel this woman has not done anything morally wrong. To silently hold a sign that says this is not intimidating or harassing and could easily be ignored. I don't think we should arrest someone like this.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39vky8wr0do

So you think some people should be allowed to hold signs inside the exclusion zone? Who decides on what signs can and can't be held there?

This is such an underrated point. People who are vocally against women having choices about their bodily autonomy never actually seem to do anything practical about it.

They never offer money, or to fundraise to solve the problem. They never adopt these children. They never set up and maintain charities to help this pressing issue. They never organise or fund actual, ethical research into these issues.

Why is that?

The police don't deal with prosecutions, that is the job of the CPS. Nice try (not).

The difference here is that the target doesn't have the choice to walk away. They have to go past the menace in order to access the service. The staff also can't just change jobs so are forced to endure the menace and their intimidating behaviour. The intent, we all know here is INTIMIDATION,GUILT,THREAT.

The intimidator is deliberately positioning themselves where the target cannot avoid them. The target is also highly vulnerable and therefore the risk of distress is greater.

The specific factors I highlight here including the power dynamic between target ( vulnerable) and the person espousing their views without being asked ( intimidator) are everything.

Do your examples meet the specific dynamic I describe? I doubt it.

Do you genuinely think that her sign would help a lady who had been coerced into an abortion?

Perhaps. The sign could be read in one of two ways:

• You've been forced to have an abortion by your partner/society. Here to talk, only if you want.
• I'm not her to coerce you into not getting an abortion. Here to talk, only if you want.

@Whotenanny so you're a woman getting an abortion for whatever reason.

You see ahead of you a random woman with a sign, in a place where protests and harassment got so bad they introduced a law and exclusion zone around it. It doesn't even matter what the sign says... that would be the one person you'd choose to talk to? Really? Come off it.

@Whotenanny and would that help as the person turns up to the clinic? Whichever way it's interpreted.

No one in their right mind would talk to someone with a banner in an exclusion zone in this situation. If you're there protesting you clearly don't care about women feeling safe.

There’s nothing worse than untitled idiots who thing rules or laws don’t apply to them.

Either way, if the end goal is to stop a woman having an abortion because the person with the sign doesn't agree with it, it's not help.

Do you genuinely believe that stopping a woman having an abortion would be helping her?

She broke the law. I'm assuming she tried to word the sign so that it could be argued as not part of a protest. This is a fuck around and find out scenario.

I have no time for people who stand outside hospitals, trying to coerce or guilt women out of a medical procedure they have deemed necessary.

I hope it sends a message that future planned protests in the exclusion zone will not be tolerated.

The underlying intention is to prevent the abortion. It's not to address the possible route cause ( if it's a coercive partner for example). It's not to support, to protect, to help or to show any care or compassion for the woman she's offering her ' help ' to.

Perhaps better placed volunteering for a DV charity? No? Oh why not? It's because the menace cares ONLY to prevent the abortion. We have to question why this is her intention. Because it absolutely is her intention. Her only intention!

It's almost like the gaslighting shit that abusers employ tbh. ' It's because I care about you' and all that rubbish. That's what she is doing with her sign. And like abusers, she's honed in at a time and place where the victim of the abuse is at their most vulnerable.

This woman, dressed up as all innocent and helpful is dangerous. She probably has links or associations with people who will push their narrative far more forcibly than her nonsense signs.

How can anyone not see how bad this is and the intent of this menacing individual. It's beyond me.

I worked at this hospital for years. Groups of “pro life” people with all manner of signs every single day. The women is most likely part of a wider problem of people harassing women making private health care decisions.

She broke the law by breaching an exclusion zone. If she wants to hold up her shitty sign she can hold it up elsewhere.

And she doesn’t give a shit about ‘coercion’. She wants vulnerable women to talk to her so she can try to tell them abortion is wrong with emotional blackmail and scaremongering. She’s a disingenuous cunt and I’m delighted she’s been arrested.

Well said, I completely agree.

Furthermore, why would anyone ever want to talk to a random person on a public street about whether or not they are being coerced? Medical professionals are trained to ask those types of questions in a safe and private environment - she’s not helping anyone, quite the contrary,

What part of it being an exclusion zone are you not grasping, OP?

How is her free speech impinged? She can stand all she likes outside the exclusion zone.

Police don’t prosecute rape. Prosecutors do.

Imagine having such a sad little life that you hang around places that have nothing do with you, with a cardboard sign. 🪧 tragic

Exactly this! I had an appointment in this fmu and unfortunately had to walk past them all. My head was already a mess having to go there in the first place then you see this.

@JHound You've answered your own question really- the restriction on her free speech is that the state is dictating what she can say where.

IANAL. Nor am I a pro-life campaigner. I just think a lot of the posts on this thread ignore the fact that this woman may have been arrested, but she hasn't been charged or convicted. I wouldn't be surprised if she wants both to happen, and I'd wager there are groups prepared to back her financially who want to use her case to knock holes in this and similar legislation.

She, and whoever is behind her, is obviously trying to test the limit of the law with the wording.

I hope the exclusion zone stays no signs whatsoever.

I know a few women who have had abortions for various reasons, every single one was a massive relief and prevented the further suffering of an already upsetting situation. I include a tragic late term abortion for a very much wanted and already loved, but with severe, unlikely to survive health problems, foetus in this.

I think these pro-life people have absolutely no idea and are a disgrace.