Media Statement
London, 18th September 2024
Today, the UK Government has announced that Safe Access Zones around abortion clinics will be implemented in England and Wales from 31st October.
Safe Access Zones were signed into law in May 2023, following a vote in favour of national legislation on Safe Access Zones in November 2022.
Abortion clinic Safe Access Zones (or buffer zones) will make it an offence to influence, obstruct, or harass those accessing or providing abortion care within 150 metres of a clinic, hospital, or any premises providing services.
Everyone deserves to access and provide abortion care without fear of anti-choice harassment. Now, across all four nations in the UK, this will be a reality.
We are proud to have campaigned for Safe Access Zones along with our partners including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), BPAS, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH), and Sister Supporter. Thanks to MPs including Stella Creasy, Rupa Huq, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Jess Phillips who made this happen.
Commenting on the news, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK Head of External Affairs Louise McCudden said:
“Women and frontline healthcare workers will finally have the protection they deserve from anti-abortion harassment outside clinics and hospitals.
“The behaviour we’ve seen outside our clinics includes spitting, calling women ‘murderers’, crying out ‘mummy! mummy!’ to women as they enter or leave, filming or taking photographs, and handing out false medical information.
“As a global provider of reproductive healthcare, we know there is a very real threat of women’s hard-won rights being rolled back in many parts of the world, with anti-abortion gatherings outside our clinics spiking when Roe v Wade was reversed in the United States. 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 that their harassment of women is not acceptable.
“Whatever your personal views are on abortion, nobody should be harassed while accessing healthcare.”
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said:
“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, which is why we have fast-tracked this measure to get it up and running without further delay.
“For too long abortion clinics have been without these vital protections, and this government is determined to do all we can do to make this country a safer place for women.”
For further information please contact:
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +44 (0) 7769 166 516
To find out more
To read more about abortion clinic Safe Access Zones, click on the links below:
