Abortion buffer zones: Why are women still harassed outside abortion clinics when a new law should protect them?

OhOn May 3 last year, things finally started to look up for reproductive rights advocates. After years of relentless pressure from abortion providers, the government had passed the “containment zones” law, which subsequently made it a crime to influence, obstruct or harass those seeking to terminate their pregnancy within 150 metres of a clinic.

“We feel very relieved,” says Nichola Dowell, director of clinical services at one such clinic, MSI in Camden, London. For years, she has witnessed the distressing impact that anti-abortion activists have on patients. “Abortion should be treated as a healthcare service and everyone should be able to access it without harassment.”

Sadly, the optimism was short-lived. Now, more than a year after the law was passed, those buffer zones have yet to be implemented. And no one is entirely sure why. “Week after week, women and frontline health workers are forced to confront hostile anti-abortion groups on their way to abortion clinics,” says Louise McCudden, director of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, which runs more than 60 abortion clinics across England. “It’s distressing. It’s terrifying. And it’s entirely avoidable.”

However, without the implementation of buffer zones, bullying outside clinics has only gotten worse. Patients and staff are regularly harassed; there are documented incidents of them being called “murderers” and “baby killers.” Some have been followed home. Others have been prevented from entering clinics.

Most of the behaviour ranges from swearing and jeering to the display of posters with graphic, often doctored images. Patients are also given leaflets with misinformation. “There’s a section where it says ‘hello, mum,’” says Michaela McDaid, director of operations services at MSI’s Brixton clinic, where there is an almost daily presence of protesters, even on days when the clinic is closed. On a Saturday afternoon last month, there were around 30 people gathered outside.

I witnessed this kind of activity first-hand when I covered the story in 2018. The lack of buffer zones was already a major problem back then. I visited the MSI clinic in Ealing, which used to be surrounded by large groups of anti-abortion protesters. On the day of my visit, the atmosphere was eerie.

There were about eight people, most of them in their 60s and 70s, standing a few feet outside the clinic door. In front of them were photoshopped photographs of fetuses at various stages of pregnancy. There were also signs urging people to “love both” alongside photos of parents and babies side by side. Protesters sang songs and handed out flyers with phone numbers of people who claimed to offer housing help, financial assistance, and “moral support,” whatever that means. I only remember one woman sitting there who looked to be about my age, if not a little older. It was disconcerting. All the more so because two months before my visit, I myself had had an abortion following a sexual assault, which I have written about before.

For a variety of reasons, I ended up doing that abortion in private, which meant I avoided encountering protests like the ones I saw that afternoon. If I had encountered them at that time, when my body was already in fight-or-flight mode due to the psychological and physical trauma of what had happened to me, I can't say I would have been able to go through with the abortion.

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Not because I would have been convinced by the disinformation spread by the protesters, but because it would have increased the anxiety that it all caused me, probably making me want to run away from home and isolate myself from everyone, including doctors. Fortunately, none of this happened and I was able to go through the procedure without encountering any protesters. Not everyone is so lucky. “Now anti-choice groups are popping up every day and the harassment is getting worse,” says Dowell.

A few days after my visit to the Ealing clinic, instead of buffer zones, which had not yet been implemented, the local council decided to create its own Safe Access Zone which would serve the same purpose and prevent anti-abortion groups from gathering outside. Earlier this year, Ealing Council renewed the initiative. However, as yet, there is no sign of it being rolled out nationally.

The effect these protesters have on patients should not be underestimated. “Women report feeling harassed, alarmed and distressed by this activity,” says Rachael Clarke, head of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading abortion advice and treatment specialists. “They often feel like they are being watched by protesters and that their privacy is being violated. And for some women, the thought of having to walk past these protesters means they delay appointments or have to call our nurses and midwives to help them get into a clinic.”

None of this has improved with the increasingly dire situation on the other side of the Atlantic. In 2022, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling overturning the 1973 ruling. Roe v. Wade ruling that granted the right to abortion throughout the country, harming the lives of millions of women in the process and turning reproductive rights into a central political issue.

Since then, 22 states have issued abortion bans or restricted the procedure beyond the standard set by Roe v. WadeThese include Alabama, Texas, Missouri, North Dakota and Arkansas, where abortion is banned in almost all circumstances. In Florida and Iowa, abortion is banned after six weeks of pregnancy, a period in which many women will not even have realized they are pregnant. Roe v. WadeWomen had the absolute right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy.

While the landmark ruling has not affected UK law, it has emboldened the anti-abortion movement around the world, with protesters taking it as an invitation to step up their activity. The government's apparent reluctance to implement buffer zones hasn't helped to downplay any of that. “We don't understand why there's been such a delay with buffer zones, but what we do know is that anti-abortion groups appear to have taken the delay as a green light to continue, and even intensify, their Texas-style tactics,” McCudden says. “Emboldened by the reversal of the Roe v. Wade In the US, anti-abortion groups have reportedly dramatically increased their spending in the UK, and these coercive behaviours outside abortion clinics may well be a result of that.”

In many ways, it seems that the situation is going in the opposite direction. “In some areas, the frequency and intensity of attacks has increased,” Clarke says of the protesters. “Since the buffer zone law was passed in the UK, at least one clinic that had never been targeted before has been attacked for the first time.”

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It is worth mentioning that, although abortion is accessible in England and Wales, termination of pregnancy is still criminalised. Currently, the Abortion Act 1967 states that an abortion is only legal if it is carried out by a registered medical practitioner (a doctor) and if it is authorised by two doctors acting in good faith and on the basis of a set of established reasons. An abortion carried out outside these limits is considered “illegal” and the punishment is the most severe: life imprisonment.

Campaigners have been fighting the archaic law for years, particularly as the number of women prosecuted for illegal abortions in Britain has risen (although it is unclear exactly what is fueling this rise, experts believe it is because police are increasingly aware of home abortions taking place as a result of the “pills by mail” scheme, making them easier to trace).

Earlier this year, it looked like progress was finally being made, as MPs from all parties, including Labour’s Stella Creasy and Diana Johnson, had proposed amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill that would have decriminalised abortion. This was due to be voted on in parliament on 4 June – then Rishi Sunak called a general election, which, due to the change of government, essentially means everything has to start again. “An amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill earlier this year, if passed, would have been a major legal reform that would have meant no one would go to jail for ending their own pregnancy,” says McCudden.

Now that we have a new government, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. “When the bill was passed, the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her ministers voted against it, so it’s hard not to think that their lack of support had an impact,” says Clarke. Now, “because this measure had such strong cross-party support, we see no justification for delaying its introduction.”

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McCudden agrees: “The good news is that the Home Office now has a ministerial team with a strong track record of supporting reproductive rights, including Safe Access Zones. Elected MPs, the courts, women, medical bodies and the British public are united behind Safe Access Zones. The law is already in place; all the Home Office needs to do is implement it, so that everyone can exercise their right to reproductive healthcare without harassment, alarm or distress.”

Although the situation continues to deteriorate in many ways with each passing day without containment zones being implemented, there have been improvements in some clinics outside London over the past year. At the BPAS clinic in Northampton, for example, staff have noticed a huge decrease in the presence of protesters, according to Sarah Nicholls, the clinic's director.

Sadly, we still have a long way to go before this becomes the norm nationally. In July, BPAS and MSI joined forces with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to write an open letter to Yvette Cooper insisting that containment zones were now a “matter of urgency”.

Talking with The IndependentA Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to introducing buffer zones around abortion clinics as soon as possible. Protecting women’s rights is a priority for this government and it is vital that anyone exercising their legal right to access abortion services is free from harassment and intimidation.”

The promise is there, as it always has been. In the meantime, all we can do is continue to wait.