Pro-choice MPs and activists have expressed their frustration at the government’s failure to implement a law on buffer zones around abortion clinics one year after 297 MPs voted in favour of the zones and as women face a new wave of protests when accessing reproductive care.
A Home Office spokesperson told the Observer that timelines would be confirmed “in due course” but refused to explain why the law was not yet in force and failed to confirm if a consultation on safe-access zones legislation had been launched.
Labour MP Stella Creasy, who has been targeted by anti-abortion protesters, called on the government to urgently intervene. “The Home Office hasn’t even got the courtesy to think of a decent excuse about why they are ignoring that vote or why in the bill they put this backdoor block on a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion in peace,” Creasy told the Observer.
Conservative MP and chair of the women and equalities committee Caroline Nokes shares Creasy’s concerns. “The will of the house was very clear: we want women accessing healthcare to be protected from aggressive protest. It is not clear why the Home Office has not even made preparations for the introduction of buffer zones with the clinics impacted. I am disappointed that women seem not to be the priority here,” she said.
The safe access zones law formed part of the Public Order Act, which received royal assent in May. At least 15 clinics have since faced protests by anti-abortion groups, including one man entering a waiting room and groups displaying graphic imagery of aborted foetuses on a 15ft banner.
With a date for the law’s commencement still not set, abortion providers fear that home secretary Suella Braverman’s own views on abortion are behind the delay.
She voted against safe access zones and has a history of opposing the liberalisation of access to abortion. “Given that the home secretary and her minister overseeing the law opposed this legislation, one can only wonder what the constitutional implications are of them seeking to deny the will of parliament in this way,” said Creasy.
“The point of a free vote is that decisions are made by individual MPs’ consciences, not by government picking and choosing what they want to do with these essential laws,” said Rachael Clarke, chief of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. “This law was supported overwhelmingly, with a majority of MPs from all major parties agreeing. There is no justification for complete silence from the home secretary.”
Braverman’s parliamentary allies Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger voted against introducing the zones, as did numerous Conservatives who have expressed anti-abortion views such as Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Fiona Bruce. The minister for women, Maria Caulfield, also voted no.
Louise McCudden, UK head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, told the Observer: “We are mystified by the lack of engagement from the Home Office on the timeline for implementing safe access zones.”
There is also concern that an anti-abortion movement emboldened by its success in the US is pressuring the government not to enact the new law.
Abortion clinics across the UK are being targeted by protesters linked to the US organisation 40 Days for Life, which calls on its members to take part in a 40-day “vigil” outside reproductive healthcare centres from 28 September to 5 November. Its website lists protests in a dozen British cities.
Women have said they felt anxious and scared when having to walk past protesters, with one woman describing how men became “aggressive and were screaming in my face”.
The international director of 40 Days for Life is Robert Colquhoun, who sits on the board of the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK, the anti-abortion group that in 2019 displayed graphic anti-abortion imagery outside Creasy’s constituency office.
The Home Office said: “It is unacceptable that anyone should feel harassed or intimidated. The police and local authorities have powers to restrict harmful protests and we expect them to take action.”
