One year on and women still don't have exclusion zones outside abortion clinics.

[Thelnebriati]

Back Off Campaign update October 2023

BPAS - the British Pregnancy Advisory Service - successfully campaigned (for a second time) to get safe access zones outside abortion clinics.
Although many MP's supported the campaign, its one year on and they still haven't done anything to bring them into force.

There's an update on the Petitions and Activism board.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4923062-bpas-back-off-campaign-update-october-2023

Thanks Inebriati.

My MP voted against this, but I'll share the campaign.

You know I saw something about this subject on the Scottish Family Party’s YouTube channel. Some Christians were praying outside a clinic and someone took offence to their religious expression and poured milk on one of them.

I believe the person who poured the milk committed a hate crime because I think they were motivated (at least partly anyway) by hostility to religion. It’s been reported and the police are involved.

I honestly don’t know what to make of all this, it’s not the world I grew up in anymore that’s for sure.

I remember when I was young, Christian fundamentalists were allowed to say whatever they wanted anywhere they wanted (and they did) and people were free to ridicule them (which they also did). It was like the price of freedom I guess. Like I said I genuinely don’t know what to make of this.

I do. I live near the first exclusion zone. It's one of the relatively few clinics which does late terminations, which are overwhelmingly TFMR i.e. babies who have serious health conditions, often those not compatible with life.

Before the exclusion zone, women entering the clinic, including staff, and local residents were routinely harassed, yelled at, and sometimes assaulted by the pro-life "protesters" in front of the clinic. Women who had made the worst decision of their lives, women who wanted nothing more than to continue their pregnancies but had made a terrible, terrible choice to preserve their babies from suffering, were being made to suffer more just to access their medical treatment. Women were being prevented from accessing the healthcare they needed. Staff were facing a daily barrage of harassment just for doing their jobs. People living on the same street were facing harassment just for walking by.

The exclusion zone has been a fucking gift. Women can approach the clinic without dealing with these shitheads. Staff can go about their lifesaving, valuable business unmolested. Residents can avoid these godawful people.

They don't give up, sadly.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/23861734.campaigners-challenging-council-order-bournemouth-abortion-clinic/

Yeah I get what you’re saying. In America they have this thing in their constitution that means people get to say pretty much whatever they want even if other people find it upsetting and horrible. It means GC feminists can’t get arrested in the USA for hurting people’s feelings though like they can in this country.

People here don’t seem to want free speech, I think it’s too much for most people. So when I hear about a GC feminist being visited by the police for hurting someone’s feelings I can’t help thinking yes of course you would get in trouble for that, we live in a country where people expect not to have their feelings hurt like that. It’s a high price and I just hope we know what we have bought.

Fuck me, this country is shit.

Yes, some people don't agree with abortion and that's fine but it is not fine to abuse someone for having a different view point to yourself, especially when you don't know the full story and they may have to be ending a very much wanted pregnancy.

I will definitely sign any campaign to make this happen

It means GC feminists can’t get arrested in the USA for hurting people’s feelings though like they can in this country.

In New York, "migendering" someone is an arrestable offence by being framed as "harassment" even though a GC feminist would describe it as "calling it as I see it", so I wouldn't treat 1A as watertight protection.

We have Forstater to protect GC feminists. We also have the Human Rights Act, which grants a right to free expression but also says that that right isn't absolute and can be restricted under limited circumstances to protect the rights of others.

Anti-abortion campaigners have the whole of the rest of the public highways of the UK in which to express their opinions. Excluding them from a tiny area outside a clinic is not an undue restriction on their free expression rights.

But it’s not fine to simply express an opinion that abortion is wrong is it? At least it’s not fine to express that opinion near a clinic and I suspect that will just be the first step towards criminalising expressing that opinion altogether. I know that sounds ridiculous, but then if you had told me in the 2000’s what the country would be like in the 2020’s I would have thought that could never happen. So who knows.

@HHhiak oh come on, I had to have a TFMR, a decision as a Christian I never thought I’d have to make. The heartbeat had stopped and I had an infection and was at risk of septis and dying. I had to go to one of these clinics, and was hounded, chased, and verbally abused by a woman calling me a murderer, evil and to change my decision.

I was always pro life and believed that other women should have control over their bodies and my religion shouldn’t have any bearing on others bodies, but I believed I wouldn’t chose to have an abortion myself. Until I did need one or risk death, or damage to my ability to carry a baby again.

But my experience with this bitch made me hardline pro choice. And absolutely make a noise and campaign about these lunatics.

Oh, for the love of Mike. They are as free to express their opinion as they always have been. And they continue to express it. Just 75 feet further down the road. That way women who need the clinic's healthcare and staff who need to do their jobs are able to operate in safety, and they get to express their fucked up vile opinions as much as they ever did. They continue to assault unwary passersby. Including me.

A negligible relocation of them in space has inhibited them from sharing their opinion with all and sundry not one bit, and made a huge difference to the safety and quality of life of clinic users, staff, and local residents.

@SylvieLaufeydottir I am also pro-choice and if they assault anyone then the police should be called and they should be arrested for assault. However I have to point out that I’m hearing the same sort of language and arguments here as I hear from other activists. You seem to be saying other people’s opinions aren’t just opinions but things that make people unsafe in some way? Yes I’ve definitely heard that said before by others.

@VerasRaincoat I’m really sorry to read that and hope you are OK. That sounds like a very traumatic experience. I’m just saying when it comes to asking governments to restrict speech be very careful what you ask for. I believe the government will restrict other people’s speech if you ask them to, but then someone else might ask them to restrict yours and they will likely do that too.

I agree with this. I am opposed to any infringement on the right to protest.

Like it or not, abortion involves two bodies and two lives, and there are always going to be strong opinions about that.

I don't think laws should be based on hurt feelings. Existing laws to prevent harassment and assault are enough to protect people at abortion clinics. Nobody needs or deserves to be protected from hearing opinions that hurt their feelings; people can cover their ears if they don't like it.

The police were repeatedly called previously, and professed themselves incapable of doing anything. It was deeply distressing for many, many people.

It's very hard for me to see how being prevented from screaming in the face of someone entering a clinic and thrusting signs to within a few inches of their face is an unconscionable restriction of someone's right to express their opinion. All they have been prevented from doing is prevented from specifically targeting women seeking legal healthcare and staff providing that healthcare to torment them. You don't have the right to express your opinion on every square inch of land in the country; if that land belongs to someone else, they can tell you to naff off and peddle your opinions elsewhere. That does not stop you having the right to express that opinion; it doesn't depend on place.

There's a difference between expressing an opinion and harassing someone. When protestors approach individuals and direct their opinions to those individuals at close quarters, "screaming in the face of someone entering a clinic and thrusting signs to within a few inches of their face", it stops being free expression and becomes targeted harassment of pregnant women on the basis of them being a) female and b) pregnant.

If protestors cannot be trusted to refrain from harassment, then we need to actively prevent them from harassing. An exclusion zone is one way to do this. They can still express their opinions freely outside the exclusion zone.

An alternative legal approach could be to extend the hate crime laws to cover all nine Equality Act protected characteristics and charge with hate crimes the protesters who scream in pregnant women's faces. I would welcome the latter, but sadly successive governments have decided that only some characteristics require protection from targeted hate.

So here we go again - MP's agreed again to implement exclusion zones (for the second or is it the third time?)

Consultation deadline is Monday 22nd January. BPAS have produced a guide.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4988625-home-office-consultation-safe-access-zones-closing-22nd-january-2024

Bump for the Saturday crowd. The deadline is Monday.

Thanks, done the consultation.