‘Safe buffer zones’ around abortion clinics and providers have today (31 October) come into force in England and Wales – but abortion access remains “deeply uneven”, campaigners have warned.
It is now illegal to influence or harass those using or delivering abortion services within a 150-metre radius of a clinic. People who breach the law could face an unlimited fine.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said that the rules – which emulate measures already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland – would protect vulnerable women.
“The idea that any woman is made to feel unsafe or harassed for accessing health services, including abortion clinics is sickening,” she said. “This stops today.”
Many campaigners welcomed the change. Heidi Stewart, CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, describeed the zones as a step forward.
“For years our staff and the women we care for have endured anti-abortion fanatics 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,” she said.
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“We and parliament have been clear that none of this behaviour is acceptable outside a medical service.”
However, Stewart expressed concern over so-called “silent prayer”, which is not automatically banned.
“For the safety, dignity and wellbeing of women accessing healthcare, we must ensure that all forms of harassment are prohibited outside abortion clinics,” Stewart said.
The Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance states that a person engaging in silent prayer “will not necessarily commit a criminal offence”, but the “context” of the conduct will be considered.
But according to advocate Mara Clarke, the debate over silent prayer – and buffer zones more broadly – misses the broader problem with abortion in the UK.
“Buffer zone legislation is the icing, and we are still waiting on the cake,” Clarke, who is the UK-based co-founder the charity Supporting Abortions for Everyone – SAFE, said.
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“We wouldn’t need these zones at all if we actually treated abortion as healthcare and mainstreamed it within all clinics and hospital services.”
Clarke has spent more than 20 years helping people in the US and Europe access safe abortions. In the UK, she said, provision is patchy.
“Access is very limited. A lot of clinics only do abortion pills,’ she said. “But if you’re past that time limit [10 or 12 weeks], then you are very limited. If you are in Scotland or Wales, for example, after 18 weeks you have to come to England. So that’s a bigger issue than a couple people standing outside of a clinic.”
Abortion has also not been decriminalized in the UK. According to the 1967 Abortions Act, the procedure is legally permitted before 24 weeks in England, Scotland, and Wales, provided that two doctors authorize the procedure. Women who seek late term abortions after 24 weeks risk facing criminal prosecution under the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
At least 52 women have been investigated by police over the past eight years based on suspicions that abortions have taken place after the legal limit.
The tally includes a 15-year-old girl who, in 2021, spent more than six months waiting to know whether she would face criminal charges after going through a natural stillbirth.
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This, Clarke said, is a bigger issue than buffer zones.
“It’s crucial that abortion is treated as healthcare and fully decriminalised, as per the World Health Organisation’s recommendations,” she said.
”Buffer zones, and the rights-based battles they set up (right to protest v right to access healthcare), continue to reinforce the idea of abortion as a moral debate when it is simply a healthcare procedure. If the government really cares about protecting women’s access to abortion, they will decriminalise it.”
