Buffer Zones Outside Abortion Clinics Are Finally Being Enforced
Over a year after legislation was passed to introduce protection zones around abortion clinics in England and Wales, the law will finally be enforceable from the end of October, the Home Office has announced.
Safe access buffer zones will mean that anti-abortion demonstrations within 150m radius of an abortion provider will be illegal, and offenders will be subject to unlimited fines.
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Securing buffer zones has long been a focal point of pro-choice campaigners who have revealed how women seeking legal terminations have been subject to harassment and fear tactics outside abortion providers, with clinic staff also facing intimidation.
While the new law around safe access zones was introduced under the previous government with cross-party support (under the Public Order Act 2023), implementation of the measures faced delays, leading to criticism from prominent politicians and campaigners.
Pro-choice campaigners questioned whether pressure from anti-abortion groups might be to blame for the delay.
The zones, which will be implemented from October 31 this year, will apply to any clinic and private hospital that is approved under the Abortion Act 1967 and for NHS hospitals carrying out abortions. Measures will ban behaviour or people that seek to intentionally or recklessly influence someone’s decision to access abortion services, harass patients or staff around clinics or anything that might obstruct someone from seeking the vital healthcare provision.
In January last year, questions were raised as to whether guidance around buffer zones had been watered down, enabling silent prayer and approaches to be made to women seeking the treatment. Cosmopolitan UK reporting from earlier this year revealed how anti-abortion campaigners have been ramping up tactics in recent years, hosting ‘vigils’ outside clinics in England and Wales in which participants hold rosary beads and recite prayers.
While the College of Policing and Crown Prosecution Service will publish guidance detailing police powers around the zones, fines and arrests will be at police discretion, meaning it remains to be seen if such action performed within 150m of clinics will be considered an offence.
The announcement comes as the new government seeks to fast-track safeguards for women, with Safeguarding Minister Jess Philips saying, 'The right to access abortion services is a fundamental right for women in this country, and no-one should feel unsafe when they seek to access this.
'We will not sit back and tolerate harassment, abuse and intimidation as people exercise their legal right to healthcare.'
Baroness Merron, Minister for Patient Safety, Women's Health and Mental Health added that 'this government will continue to work closely with NHS England, abortion providers and the wider sector to ensure that women have access to safe, high quality abortion services.'
The move comes against a backdrop of campaigners and a cross-party group of politicians seeking to decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks in England and Wales. Currently abortion is only legal up to 24 weeks of gestation and if approved by two authorised doctors. In June 2023, a mother of three was sentenced to more than two years for inducing an abortion during lockdown when she was between 32-34 weeks pregnant. The sentence was later reduced at appeal to 14 months suspended.
Responding to the news, Heidi Stewart, CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said that they welcome the implementation of safe access zones which 'can’t come soon enough', adding: 'For years our staff and the women we care for have endured anti-abortion protesters standing outside clinics for hours on end staring at them accessing or going to provide private medical care, stopping them outside and telling them that abortion is murder, handing out leaflets falsely that abortion causes breast cancer, wearing body cameras, and displaying graphic and distressing posters. We and Parliament have been clear that none of this behaviour is acceptable outside a medical service.'
Regarding possible loopholes which might enable vigils around clinics, Stewart said the BPAS is hopeful the Home Office has recognised concerns around 'the harm caused by so-called silent prayer and "consensual communication."' The BPAS said that 'for the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of women accessing healthcare, we must ensure that all forms of harassment are prohibited outside abortion clinics.'
Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ Head of UK External Affairs also welcomed the news, saying: 'Women and frontline healthcare workers will finally have the protection they deserve from anti-abortion harassment outside clinics and hospitals,” adding that “by getting safe access zones up and running, the UK government is not only supporting women in England and Wales to exercise their own reproductive rights safely and with dignity, but they are also sending a clear signal to anti-rights groups elsewhere.'
The organisation is further calling for wider reform of abortion laws, saying, 'it cannot be right that anyone be threatened with prison for ending their own pregnancy, which is what we’ve seen happening in recent years, under laws passed before women even had the vote.'
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