Anti-abortion protesters outside clinics

[VillaVillekulla]

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.

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?

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

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.

Signed.

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

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.

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 and

Percy - well said.
Villa - signed

The petition not three titian.

Wtf iPad?

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.

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)

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.

Signed.

Free speech is finite though. You aren't free to incite violence or hatred. You aren't free to incite fear. You can't lie about people or companies. Free speech isn't free, so no, I don't think telling these utter idiots to hold their protest over 500 yards away from a facility is unreasonable. They wouldn't be allowed to hold this kind of protest in the US, they have to have a buffer zone.

I just think protesting outside a clinic is beyond the pale. To me it's akin to protesting inside a hospital or at a funeral. It's not a protest, it's just causing unnecessary distress to vulnerable people.

The thing is, I don't think you'd get away with doing either of the latter examples, surely this should be the same?

have signed

this is bullying

freedom of speech comes with responsibility and all our actions do

Obviously feeling very cynical today Saskia because my immediate response to your hospital or funeral example is: men use those services too, so of course people wouldn't be allowed to protest there...

I've signed too.

I've signed. I don't struggle at all with the 'free speech' dilemma. I don't think you can compare this with other demonstrations, eg against animal cruelty outside Huntingdon Life Sciences. The difference for me is that these people are targeting individuals going about their completely legal business, as opposed to targeting corporations, etc.

How long could a group stand in the entrance to a church thrusting placards into people's faces and complaining about the activities of catholic priests without being moved on? Does anyone watch The Revolution will be Televised? Almost every time those guys set up a spoof demonstration outside a corporate headquarters the police appear in the background and support the corporation's own security guys in moving them on.

I believe the only reason anti-abortion demonstrators get away with their vile practice is because it is targeted against individual women so very few people give a fuck.

If people were harassing refugees outside support centres, Jews outside synagogues, Muslims outside mosques, gays outside gayclubs etc.... The police would be involved, they would be charged with harassment, public order offences, possibly hate crimes and quite rightly.

Women's rights aren't protected because we aren't considered worthy of protection.

Women's rights aren't protected because we aren't considered worthy of protection.

But they were worthy of being enshrined in law in the first place. Why would that be then?

Yup, Roll, in this case and in other cases where crowds of ill informed bigots harass women trying to access their legal right to abortion, there does seem to be little interest in protecting women's safety and rights.

The law on abortion doesn't enshrine women's rights Nojacket, it curtails them.

Signed. These people are bullying scum hoping to harass and intimidate women. Agreed with PP- They should be making their misogynistic protest in Parliament sq or outside their MP's office if they genuinely want legal change.
Their freedom of speech is totally unaffected if they are stopped from harassing and intimidating women accessing health care. The Police should be moving them on.

You mean that there are limits on the law, Boom? Of course there are, but the right to an abortion exists. So why would it be there is people didn't care about women's rights? I assume it was passed through Parliament by rich, white males.

You don't have a 'right' to an abortion actually nojacket. It has to be signed off on by two doctors. A right can't be conditional on someone else's agreement. At present it's probably more accurate to say something like 'women have the right to request abortion, which is likely to be allowed providing two doctors agree'. Semantics I know, but actually quite an important distinction.