BPAS have resurrected the Back Off campaign.

[Thelnebriati]

BPAS say ''38 hospitals, GP surgeries, and clinics in England and Wales have experienced anti-abortion protest activity in the last 18 months. 8 of these protests are completely new''

''Protests are increasing outside abortion clinics, and protesters are actively harassing women who try to enter or leave.''
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/08/calls-for-exclusion-zones-outside-uk-abortion-clinics-amid-protests

BPAS have already won this battle once but the decision to place buffer zones outside abortion clinics was overturned by Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

There's a pre filled email for you to fill in (which you can edit) you will need to give your name, address and postcode, and the email will be sent to your MP.
back-off.org/take-action-now/?mc_cid=295a972bd5&mc_eid=d2360da930

The war on women gathers apace

Make it illegal so they can be charged and sentenced.
When these interfering assholes have seen somebody had to do community service or a spell behind bars or pay a fine, they might find another less harmful cause

Thank you for highlighting this - I have signed and shared

Sections 4 & 5 of the Public Order Act, 1986 (Harrassment)

Thanks for sharing this. My MP is new, and I’m still waiting for a reply from her on another (non-women’s rights) issue, but I shall bother her again as this is a very, very important issue, really a fundamental one for women’s rights.

Thank you for sharing. I’ve signed it, it was very straightforward.

Signed. Thank you.

I saw some anti-abortion 'campaigners' spouting off in my city. I gave them a piece of my mind.

I will sign but what’s the likelihood of Priti Patel doing anything?

Thanks for sharing this. Really important

Signed. I don't imagine it being a high priority for my Tory MP but he can't say nobody mentioned it.

Email sent to MP. Thanks for sharing this.

I've emailed my MP but he has never once got back to me with anything of value. Typical right wing Tory who got in on a huge majority so not expecting anything different.

Thanks adding it to my list of things to write to my MP.

Have emailed - thanks for the heads up.

Excellent. Buffer zones are extremely necessary. By all means campaign against abortion if you feel you must, but harassing women accessing their healthcare is beyond the pale, and I can't see how it helps your case.

Exactly
Make your misogynistic political or religious argument to your MP, fine.
Harassing, intimidating, filming, individual women, doctors and nurses? Deterring women from accessing impartial counselling and/or healthcare that’s safest the earlier it’s given /or a referral into antenatal care? Fuck you bastards

Done and shared

Signed, thank you.

I've signed and shared. Priti Patel is my MP also so I'm not holding out much hope for a decent response.

I've done a complete about face on this. I've never been on a vigil outside a clinic, and I don't think they are a good idea, but I was ambivalent about bans because it's a bit of wobbly line in terms of freedom to protest.

I understand the mindset. Some of the people on vigils are undoubtedly motivated by controlling women, but there are a few who have tunnel-visioned compassion and genuinely believe they are some sort of last line of defence, rescuing women and children. And a handful of women have changed their minds and kept their children.

However.

The reason those women changed their minds was because they had not received enough support to make a decision they were 100% sure, and the way to resolve that is to pour energy into making sure there is a change in culture and support for women do that those for whom having a child is not truly unthinkable, but they just need specific support, receive that support.

Pro life groups that campaign for that kind of support, be it adequate counselling, or political changes so that women are safe from abuse and ok financially or able to continue study, have my support. I think that's an appropriate perspective if you claim to be pro-woman and pro-life.

But holding these kinds of protests is at best a thumpingly insensitive and astoundingly ineffective way to help them and make the case that you 'care about both', and at worst harassing and intimidating women and simply adding to their distress as they have a completely legal procedure and compounding any future emotional fallout from it.

For the reason, I am 100% in favour of buffer zones, and I implore pro-life women, some of whom I know are genuine about their motivation to 'love them both', spend your energies on methods of supporting women that will not also distress and frighten them. You are being profoundly inconsistent here.

Thank you, I've signed.

I was ambivalent about bans because it's a bit of wobbly line in terms of freedom to protest.

Can I just reassure you, the Back Off campaign has nothing to do with banning protest?
It's to establish a buffer zone outside the clinic so that women can enter and leave without being harassed. There is no protesting permitted within the buffer zone; there is often an area established to allow protesters to make their point but in a way that doesn't cause distress.

Thank you for highlighting this. I have emailed my MP.

It's to establish a buffer zone outside the clinic so that women can enter and leave without being harassed. There is no protesting permitted within the buffer zone; there is often an area established to allow protesters to make their point but in a way that doesn't cause distress.

Well, quite, and if I can add, because I didn't make the point clearly enough in my previous post - my conclusion about the freedom to protest is that being free to protest is not carte blanche to go anywhere for any reason. That's why there is a balance to be struck with laws about harrassment.

In the other issue du jour, for example, I completely support the right of feminists to protest outside meetings of people gathering to campaign for even more children pushed down a medicalization path for gender issues- but I would take an extremely dim view of any feminist organisation that decided to set up a protest outside a hospital to harrass young women going in for elective mastectomies as some sort of last ditch rescue attempt.

Political protest should never be a vehicle for intimidation, particularly for those of us who understand the position of women in society.