Anti-Abortion Protests Outside Abortion Service Providers in Ireland Highlight the Need for Buffer Zones Around Abortion Clinics in Ireland and Britain

22 January 2019

The first week of extended access to abortion services in Ireland has also brought with it scenes in Galway of picketing and campaigning outside abortion services by anti-abortion activists. In response, the Twitter hashtag #SiulLiom (“I walk with her” in Irish) has been trending, as people offer to accompany and support women seeking abortions who feel intimidated by the prospect of protests outside clinics. 

Protesting outside abortion services has seen an increase over the past decade in Britain, with forms of protest ranging from confrontation of women entering the clinic and the display of graphic imagery to silent prayer vigils and the handing out of leaflets offering support for women to continue their pregnancies. Yet such activities are largely legal, as buffer zones around abortion services, which would criminalise anyone protesting within a certain distance of an abortion provider, do not exist in Britain. 

The need for buffer zones

One woman interviewed by the BBC, who had experienced anti-abortion protests at the gates of the abortion service, described being “haunted” after being told that she was a murderer, while another said: “I remember just feeling so scared of [having the abortion].… I didn’t expect to be faced with a group of people standing outside, casting shame on what was a really difficult thing for me… It added a lot of pain to something that was already very painful.” 

Research by Lowe and Hayes has shown that the presence of protestors, even when they described themselves as there not to protest but simply to pray silently, was still experienced as traumatic by abortion service users because of the experience of being watched and having their physical space encroached upon. The fear caused by the uncertainty of what the protestors might do was also raised as a factor by women as they entered and exited the clinics. Lowe and Hayes draw a parallel with the frequent experience of street harassment in women’s lives; the unwelcome persistent attention, often in relation to a woman’s body, which is the essence of street harassment is amplified in women’s experience of negotiating stares, physical obstruction and judgment about their reproductive choices as they enter or exit an abortion provider. 

Buffer zones are necessary, in the words of Mairead Enright, senior lecturer in law at Birmingham University because “It’s about generally sending a message about access, sending a message that it’s no longer permissible to stigmatize and intimidate and mislead and obstruct women who are accessing a legal service,” she said. 

Balancing freedom of expression

The countervailing argument is that to create zones where even peaceful protest is prohibited is to unnecessarily restrict freedom of expression. This argument has been made forcefully by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) that such zones “criminalise prayer” and could “fatally injure the highly treasured principle of freedom of speech”. SPUC highlight instances where women intending to have abortions had their minds changed after they were offered help and support by those praying outside the clinic gates.

There must of course be a weighing between the Article 8 right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Article 10 right to freedom of express. Yet in relation to protests about other controversial issues, criminal legal restrictions have been employed. Power exists under the Protection from Harassment Act for injunctions to create exclusion zones to protect animal research laboratories by preventing anti-animal testing protestors from demonstrating within a specific distance of certain laboratory buildings, breach of which is an arrestable offence.

There is a further dimension – this is a question of place. Abortion care is simply one part of legal National Health Service (NHS) medical care. Accessing any sort of medical care brings with it an expectation of privacy which is violated by protests both for individual women seeking care, and for the premises of the abortion service provider more generally, to which attention is continually being drawn. This seems obvious in the context of other NHS healthcare facilities: for a person to stand outside a sexual health clinic, telling all passersby that anyone entering the clinic had a sexually transmitted infection would be a clear breach of the peace. There is no limitation on those opposed to abortion protesting in other public spaces such as outside Parliament, or publicising anti-abortion literature. The buffer zone serves merely to ensure that a medical service can be provided to patients with the privacy they expect.

The current patchwork of legal protection for abortion service users and providers

In early 2018, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid undertook the Abortion Clinic Protest Review to investigate whether buffer zones should be established around all abortion providers. The outcome of the Review in September 2018 recognised that protest activities outside abortion providers caused distress both to women seeking abortion services and abortion provider staff. The Review did, however, decide against a change in the law, claiming that the scope of current protest was small, and that existing legislation existed to restrict protest activities which would cause harm.  Sadly, this is not the case: applying current criminal law to these protests will at best prevent some protest activities, but the patchwork of legislation cannot provide the protection that is needed. 

The Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the display of images that cause harassment, alarm or distress, which may prevent the display of graphic images of foetuses by protestors. However, the police only have powers to disperse a gathering if it “may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property, serious disruption to the life of the community, or that the purpose by the assembly organisers is to intimidate others to compel them not to do an act that they have a right to do”. This is law designed to prevent public disorder, rather than recognise the harassment felt by women entering abortion clinics by the very presence of anti-abortion campaigners. If any crime such as assault has occurred outside the clinic, then the onus is on the woman to report this to the police, at what is likely to be an already stressful time in her life. 

Another model?

In April 2018, the West London council of Ealing introduced a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO), imposing a 100m buffer zone around a Marie Stopes clinic which had been the subject of prolonged anti-abortion campaigning. This has been backed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare (FRSH) and also politicians from all parties, with reports that city councils in Manchester and Birmingham are looking into making similar orders. 

The problem however, is that the PSPO as used in Ealing cannot provide a full solution to the problem of protests. The PSPO lasts only 3 years, after which there must be a full further consultation with proof provided that the buffer zone needs to continue. The initial process for a council to obtain a PSPO is onerous with regard to proving the need via public consultation and a separate PSPO must be obtained for each abortion service provider. Women seeking healthcare therefore face a ‘postcode lottery’ as to whether the council in their area has introduced a PSPO for the individual abortion service provider they are visiting. 

Laws that provide for buffer zones already exist in states in Australia, Canada and the United States. It is time for Parliament in Westminster to lead the way and create a single national law to allow women to access NHS reproductive healthcare without harassment.

 

Charlotte Kelly, BSACP Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Representative; DPhil Student in Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford, UK; charlotte.kelly@balliol.ox.ac.uk

 

Note on the Author

Charlotte Kelly is the BSACP Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Representative, and so brings a lay perspective to the BSACP Committee. She is also a member of the Women’s Voices Involvement Panel of the RCOG and has a long-term gynaecological disability. She is a DPhil (PhD) student in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, and her research spans children and disability law.