LEGAL ACTION
AGAINST CAMDEN
17/05/2021
Not even a global pandemic could stop anti-choice harassment outside the Marie Stopes clinic in Camden.
Our Whitfield Street campaign has been active since 2019 and, despite being provided with stacks of evidence, Camden Council is yet to address the problem.
We've teamed up with Good Law Project to take action.
Find out more over on their website.
MANCHESTER HAS A
BUFFER ZONE
PRESS RELEASE
09/10/2020
SISTER SUPPORTER MANCHESTER SECURES UK’S THIRD BUFFER ZONE - THE FIRST OUTSIDE OF LONDON
Manchester City Council has announced that it will introduce a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) around the Marie Stopes Clinic in Fallowfield, Manchester.
This decision follows an investigation into protests outside this clinic and follows complaints from Manchester residents and Sister Supporter Manchester about the harassment and intimidation of abortion clinic users and staff.
Sister Supporter Manchester has been campaigning for the introduction of a PSPO around the clinic since 2018, following the successful implementation of a PSPO in Ealing by the original Sister Supporter group. They have gathered evidence of harassment and submitted it to the council as well as organising a petition which garnered over 2096 signatures, triggering a public consultation which has lead to this decision.
Eabha Doherty, Founder of the Manchester branch of Sister Supporter shares the following statement:
“Sister Supporter Manchester believes that those who wish to exercise their legal right to healthcare should be free to do so without interference and judgement. We are delighted that Manchester City Council has taken the decision to protect this right by implementing a safe zone around the Marie Stopes clinic in Fallowfield.
“This news will come as a great relief to clinic users and staff who have had to endure years of harassment and intimidation from anti-abortion protestors. The distress and trauma that has been caused by these protestors over the years can never be undone, but we are hopeful that this new measure will provide adequate protection for those accessing the clinic from now on.
“After dedicated campaigning from Sister Supporter Manchester and other pro-choice organisations, and following the precedent set by the original Sister Supporter campaign in Ealing, we are proud to be able to say that such harassment and intimidation will no longer be tolerated at this clinic.
“Although this a very welcome step, it is simply not good enough that those accessing this clinic in Manchester will now be protected, but the same cannot be said for people accessing abortion services at almost every other clinic in the country. They still risk having to face verbal abuse, graphic images and physical intimidation on their way into their appointment.
“The right to privacy and unimpeded access to healthcare is not a local issue. Clinic harassment is, and continues to be, a huge national problem. We are calling for the government to do the right thing and legislate for nationwide restrictions on protests outside abortion clinics.”
Sister Supporter spokespeople are available for interview, please contact: sistersupp.mcr@gmail.com
PRESS RELEASE
11/03/2020
SISTER SUPPORTER WELCOMES THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION TO DENY PERMISSION TO APPEAL THE EALING BUFFER ZONE
In April 2018, Ealing Council made the decision to implement the first buffer zone outside an abortion clinic in the UK.
This decision was challenged in the courts by anti-choice campaigners, who lost their case in the High Court, and subsequently the Court of Appeal. We have heard today that their application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been denied.
We are thrilled with the decision of the Supreme Court, which protects the right of staff and service-users to access the Marie Stopes Clinic in Ealing free from harassment and intimidation. It is clear that, at every level, the UK justice system considers the implementation of the buffer zone in Ealing to have been a proportionate response to the problem of anti-choice harassment.
The decision of the Supreme Court means that the protection that has been afforded to women in Ealing will continue whilst the PSPO is still in effect. However, the Home Secretary’s 2018 decision not to propose national legislation means that service-users accessing abortion clinics across the country are not afforded the same rights. Ealing’s buffer zone has to be renewed every three years, and therefore it will be in jeopardy from April 2021 if national legislation has not been introduced.
We want women across the UK to be supported and protected, no matter where they live, or which abortion clinic they attend. Sister Supporter will therefore continue, alongside MSI and the BPAS Back-Off Campaign, to call for national legislation on buffer zones, and fully supports Sarah Olney MP’s private members bill for buffer zones, introduced to Parliament today.
If you would like to help, please email your MP and tell them how you feel, or contact us at contact@sistersupporter.co.uk. You can also find us on Twitter @sistersupporter.
Our Story
Sister Supporter is a pro-choice, anti-harassment organisation, founded by Ealing residents in November 2015, following more than two decades of the harassment and intimidation of women accessing healthcare outside our local Marie Stopes Clinic.
We gathered the signatures of 3,566 local residents who were concerned about the anti-choice presence outside the Clinic, and presented a petition to Ealing Council, asking them to take action, and place a Public Space Protection Order around the clinic.
On 10 October 2017, the Council unanimously decided to explore all possible resolutions to the situation outside the Clinic. The Ealing Community Safety Team ran a thorough investigation which included placing Council Officers anonymously in the clinic. From this evidence, they recommended a Public Space Protection Order which, by law, requires a public consultation.
This consultation provided further evidence from residents of the hostile and intimidatory atmosphere outside the Clinic.
The anti-choice harassment and intimidation experienced by clinic service-users and staff includes (among other things):
- being given grossly inaccurate leaflets which claim that they will get breast cancer if they have an abortion and won’t be able to conceive in the future,
- having to walk past medically inaccurate photographs of foetuses,
- being handed blue or pink rosaries, small plastic models of foetuses and knitted baby booties,
- being called “mum” and “murderers”,
- being told that the vigiler will “pray for them”,
- being told that they are making a mistake,
- being told to “rethink their lifestyle”,
- being told that they are in the wrong place and that this is not where the clinic is.
The evidence pack we provided to Ealing Council in support of the buffer zone is available here.
2,181 people responded to the Ealing consultation. Over 80% of these responses came from people living within the borough, and over 80% of the respondents wanted a buffer zone and reported that they had witnessed, at first-hand, harassing and intimidating behaviour.
On 10 April 2018, Ealing councillors unanimously voted to implement a buffer zone preventing protest within 100m of the Clinic.
Richard Bentley, Marie Stopes UK managing director, said:
"This is a landmark decision for women.
"This was never about protest. It was about small groups of strangers choosing to gather by our entrance gates where they could harass and intimidate women and try to prevent them from accessing healthcare to which they are legally entitled."
The Manager of the Ealing Clinic has told us that, since the implementation of the Public Space Protection Order, the number of women who describe their harassment in the Clinic incident book has fallen from approximately 12 per week to zero.
In November 2017, then Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced a review into what further action the government can take to protect those using or working in abortion clinics. We were hopeful that national legislation would be implemented, protecting women across the United Kingdom.
A letter signed by 113 MPs from five political parties was sent to the Home Secretary calling for her to bring forward laws to impose “buffer zones” outside family planning facilities. Signatories include Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, and Sir Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Responding to a question from Dr Onkar Sahota at a Mayor’s Question Time in November 2017, Mayor Khan said he fully supports the motion passed by Ealing Council and would take his lead from London councils about any particular issues he can help with in ensuring this local solution is effective. Mayor Khan tweeted
“I support the right to protest - but when protest turns into harassment of women accessing their rights, something needs to be done. That’s why I fully support @EalingCouncil’s efforts to protect women accessing abortion and reproductive health services. #MQT”
Sadly, on 13 September 2018, the UK Government announced that it had decided not to introduce new legislation to specifically tackle anti-choice protesters harassing women outside abortion clinics. The decision, announced in a written ministerial statement delivered by Home Secretary Sajid Javid, was taken because it has concluded that existing legislation can be sufficient to tackle such harassment, and therefore further specific legislation would ‘not be a proportionate response’.
We will continue to campaign for a national solution. However, in the interim, we are helping women by campaigning for buffer zones on a Council-by-Council basis.
On 5 March 2019, Richmond Council agreed to implement a Public Space Protection Order to stop vigils being staged outside the BPAS clinic.
We have set up Sister Supporter Manchester, and Sister Supporter Bournemouth. Both of these organisations are campaigning for buffer zones. These particular clinics, along with Ealing, Brighton, Southampton, Nottingham, Reading, Glasgow and Maidstone, are currently the target of a campaign by the American group 40 Days for Life. Targeted clinics are subject to unrelenting protest, and women accessing the Clinic are being harassed and intimidated.
Sister Supporter is currently involved in campaigning for a buffer zone outside the Marie Stopes Clinic on Whitfield Street in Camden.
About Sister Supporter
We are a group of volunteers (none of us are paid or receive any form of remuneration for our work with Sister Supporter) who believe that those who wish to exercise their legal right to healthcare should be free to do so without interference and judgement.
We are not anti-religion, nor are we pro-abortion. We are, however, opposed to anyone, with any agenda, placing themselves outside health facilities in order to discourage or deter access. This includes religious groups conducting prayer vigils in the immediate vicinity.
Follow our journey on socials