On a warm midsummer Saturday, they arrive with headsets and a megaphone. Through it they project the words “don’t do it, you’ll regret it” while pushing empty prams up and down the street. “It” is have an abortion and their words reverberate so loudly staff and those at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinic in Finsbury Park who need or want to terminate a pregnancy can hear them inside. And “they” are anti-choice, anti-abortion protesters who, in the last two weeks alone, have set themselves up outside the clinic four times.
The clinic is as innocuous as it is discreet, resembling GP surgeries up and down the country. But the protesters make it conspicuous. Vikki Webb is the treatment unit manager at the clinic and has worked there for 15 years. She says that until two years ago, the clinic had never been subjected to anti-abortion harassment. “Since the pandemic and particularly since the American decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the situation has 100 per cent got worse here,” she says. “Last Easter, there were around 30 or 40 protesters lined up outside the clinic and we had to have a police presence because of the numbers. We had more in December, January and Easter again this year, but since the US Supreme Court decision was decided three weeks ago they’ve been here twice a week.”
“It’s upsetting for the women who use our services,” Webb adds. “They wait and watch for women to leave the clinic and then they walk really fast up to them with the empty pram. I saw them surround another woman’s car. I had women in tears last Saturday because of it. It makes me feel angry because it is almost like bullying and you never know what someone is going through when they have an abortion.” For instance, Webb tells me that one of the women who came to the clinic last weekend was a victim of sexual assault which is why she had chosen to terminate her pregnancy. “What gives them the right to upset people,” she asks.
But Finsbury Park is not the only part of London where abortion clinics are plagued by protesters. In Brixton, the Marie Stopes clinic is experiencing similar problems. Michaela is the lead client co-ordinator there. Protesters are praying, holding placards which can bear graphic images of bloody foetuses, standing directly outside the clinic, giving leaflets full of misinformation to women and trying to hand out rosary beads. “We had 15 of them standing outside last time,” she says. “It has an effect on all of us but particularly on our clients who might be going through a vulnerable moment. I think it is a shock for people to see the protesters. I don’t think many people realise it still happens in this country.”
Anti-abortion protests have got worse sine Roe v Wade was overturned
/ APMichaela describes her role and that of her team when clients encounter protesters as “damage control”. She explains that they have to “work overdrive” to make people feel safe in the building and reassure them that protesters aren’t allowed in. One leaflet that she shows me says “Believe in Yourself & Follow Your Heart: Please choose life for your baby!”. It contains the number of a “helpline” and encourages women to call it “even if” they’ve already taken abortion medication. The Marie Stopes team explain that this is highly concerning and potentially medically unsafe.
Abortion has been legal in Britain since the 1967 Abortion Act came into force, though it remains a criminal offence unless two doctors sign off on theprocedure and it is carried out in licensed premises. But our clinics are plagued by protesters, some of whom have funding links which can be traced to America’s “pro-life” movement. Both Marie Stopes and BPAS fear that the decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which legalised abortion in the US, is emboldening the anti-abortion lobby in Britain.
Not all London clinics are as exposed as Brixton and Finsbury Park. In 2018, Ealing council became the first in the UK to implement a ‘buffer zone’ around the MSI West London clinic. It prevents protesters from coming within 100 metres of the clinic. The move was hailed as a huge step forward for the protection of women seeking abortion services against a backdrop of abuse. In 2019, Richmond council granted a buffer zone for a BPAS clinic there.
As things stand, councils must open a public consultation process before they decide whether or not to set up a buffer zone locally. This is a lengthy and admin-heavy process which is why women’s health experts had hoped that Westminster would step in. Parliament could pass legislation that implements fixed buffer zones around all clinics which provide abortion services in England and Wales. This would make it an offence to engage in prohibited behaviour (as defined by the legislation) within a specified area around all abortion clinics.
Marie Stopes staff say protesters now station themselves at the edge of the buffer zone so are still intimidating those seeking abortions
The argument against such legislation is that it infringes on free speech and the right to demonstrate under the European Convention on Human Rights. However, experts have argued that challenges would likely be unsuccessful. In any case, calling these “protests” is part of the problem. Abortion is essential healthcare according to the World Health Organisation and it is legal in Britain. And even when buffer zones are put in place, they can only do so much. Marie Stopes staff say protesters now station themselves at the edge of the Ealing buffer zone so they are still intimidating those seeking abortions as well as staff as they come and go.
Since the Roe v Wade decision was announced, the need for buffer zones and for abortion to be taken out of criminal law has become more urgent than ever. The impact of encountering anti-abortion views on the way to or from an appointment cannot be underestimated. In 2018, 34-year-old Susan (who asked for her real name not to be used) was accosted by protesters as she left the Richmond BPAS clinic. “I was absolutely horrified to be confronted by these really churchy looking women who held banners and posters showing graphic images of bloody unborn foetuses,” she says. “They were also trying to hand out leaflets full of misinformation about abortion, for instance saying it causes cancer, to people going in and out of the clinic. They kept saying ‘don’t do this, God loves you’, and they were holding rosaries. And I just kept thinking this could be Texas, not London.”
Four years later, Susan is still affected. “I feel furious,” she says. “How dare anyone come up to us in a moment of vulnerability and encroach on our privacy like that? I keep thinking about some of the younger girls in the clinic that day, what must it have been like for them.”
How dare anyone come up to us in a moment of vulnerability and encroach on our privacy like that?
Despite the relative success of buffer zones in Ealing and Richmond, in 2018 the Home Office decided not to implement them nationally. Then-home secretary Sajid Javid said he did not think they were “an appropriate response” as the protesters were “passive by nature”.
Mayor Sadiq Khan disagrees. He told the Standard: “I have pushed for a buffer zone to be created in Ealing and will continue to work with partners to ensure women are free from harassment across London. The Government needs to do more to protect vulnerable women attending clinics and make it much easier for buffer zones to be introduced where they are needed.”
In Parliament, abortion is an issue of conscience. This means that MPs vote according to their beliefs. It also means that, were there ever to be a vote on access to abortion, a pro-abortion outcome could not be guaranteed. After the US decision, Tory MP Danny Kruger said that he does not believe women have “an absolute right to bodily autonomy”. And when Labour’s Stella Creasy called on Parliament to enshrine the right to abortion as a human right, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab reminded her that it is “an issue of conscience” and said he could see “no strong case for change”.
The question for politicians remains: is chasing women who have just had abortions down the street with megaphones “peaceful”? Is handing out misinformation leaflets passive”?
Vicky Spratt is a writer at Refinery29 UK which has been campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion since 2019