Women should be able to access abortion clinics in “safety and dignity”, an MP said today as she proposed a new law to stop pro-life protesters picketing health centres.
Rupa Huq, Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, was due to bring forward a 10-minute rule motion in Parliament to ban anti-abortion demonstrators from harassing women outside clinics.
She has gained cross-party support for the bill, including from senior Conservatives Sir Bernard Jenkin and Andrew Mitchell.
It would create “buffer zones” around the health centres and keep demonstrations 150 metres away from facilities.
Dr Huq was expected to tell the Commons: “This is about the rights of vulnerable women to access healthcare in safety, anonymity and dignity without accompanying paraphernalia to induce guilt like grossly inaccurate quasi medical leaflets or being filmed or live streamed entering and leaving the clinic which no other procedure would attract.”
The protests have been a particular problem in her constituency where the Ealing council became the first local authority to introduce a protest-free zone outside a clinic in 2018.
Dr Huq will say the foetus images lining the road make her “shudder”, adding: “Worse still was the anguish felt by women clinic users: usually young, having to go through a challenging process sometimes after rape or even fatal foetal abnormality.”
At present, councils can apply for public space protection orders to ban gatherings, but these need to be regularly renewed.
Ten-minute rule bills rarely make it on to the statute book without government backing.
