Lawyers for the Fertility Control Clinic in East Melbourne will argue before the supreme court the city council has an obligation to prevent anti-abortion protesters from harassing women as they enter the clinic for health services.
Over the next two days, justice Michael McDonald will hear evidence staff and patients at the clinic have been harassed by protesters for almost two decades.
Elizabeth O’Shea, senior associate in the social justice practice of Maurice Blackburn, who along with the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) is representing the clinic pro bono, told reporters outside the court Melbourne city council had an obligation to act.
“The fertility control clinic is a resident, a rate payer of Melbourne city council, and we think they’ve got a job there to remedy the nuisance that’s going on,” O’Shea said.
“We say the nuisance is consisting of both harassment of staff and patients out the front of the clinic.”
Lawyers for the clinic will argue under the Public Health Act, the council has an obligation to stop the protesters.
“This is not a case of peaceful Christians silently, politely expressing their view,” she said.
“The people who stand out front of the clinic do not consider themselves to be protesting, they consider themselves to be trying to stop women accessing abortions. And that is totally unacceptable in a state where abortion is decriminalised, perfectly lawful and in some cases, an essential health service.”
A Melbourne city council spokesman said he could not comment on the case as it was before the court.
Emily Howie, director of advocacy at HRLC, said women and staff were being verbally harassed, shown distressing placards and images, and at times blocked from entering the clinic by the protesters.
“No one is saying people don’t have a right to express their opinions,” she said.
“What we’re saying is it must be done in a way that respects women’s rights to privacy and to safe access to health care.
“What we’re talking about here is not simple speech, we’re talking about a course of conduct that is harmful, that is deliberately aimed at preventing women from accessing their doctor.”
Protesters from the same group, called Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, also lobby outside of Albury’s only abortion clinic every Thursday, the day of the week abortions are performed.
In response to the protesters’ actions, some health professionals have now formed their own group, called Rights to Privacy.
Helpers of God’s Precious Infants have previously denied allegations of similar behaviour, saying “the abortion clinic, abortion activists, police and pedestrians have hundreds of hours of footage of the [group] and have never been able to show evidence of any harassment, blocking, or violence.”
In 2001 a security guard, Steven Rogers, was murdered by an anti-choice protester at the clinic.
