By SPUC's Margaret Akers. 

Various pro-abortion campaigning groups have submitted “evidence” regarding “buffer zones” to the scrutiny committee for the Public Order Bill. Rupa Huq MP has tabled an amendment to this Bill which would legislate at a national level for 150-meter buffer zones outside abortion providers.

The pro-abortion submission, titled “Clinic harassment and safe access zone briefing”, is signed off by abortion providers like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and Marie Stopes, and medical bodies including the BMA, RCOG and RCGP.

It is important to note that these medical bodies have become increasingly pro-abortion in their campaigning.

Unsubstantiated claims

The pro-abortion briefing does not contain a single citation to back up any claims made – for comparison, SPUC’s submission provided 11 sources to support our position. Some of the assertions in the pro-abortion document would most certainly need to be researched and cited before they can be taken seriously.

For example, the briefing claims that the presence of pro-life vigils pushes some women to buy illegal abortion drugs online. It reads:

“In some cases, women defer their treatment rather than risk facing harassment, or purchase abortion pills online from unregulated providers.”

It is difficult to see how this could be the case, as with telemedicine abortion, women can have abortion pills legally sent to their homes already. This claim provides no source or data.

The briefing also claims that pro-life groups spread “medical misinformation” – making particular reference to the effect abortion can have on women’s mental health. They do not provide any evidence disproving these effects. (If you would like to view the evidence on the impact of abortion on women’s mental and physical health, see the publication Abortion and Women’s Health.)

Police already have the authority to intervene where intimidation and harassment take place. But this briefing suggests this does not go far enough. It reads:

“Police at a local level report being unable to address existing problems owing to a lack of legislation under which they could move individuals to protest elsewhere. In many cases they recognise the impact on women accessing services but are unable to act.”

Again, it provides no evidence that this is the case – no input from the police is provided to back up this statement.

The “evidence” provided in this briefing is thin and unsubstantiated – which is particularly egregious coming from medical bodies. It relies on anecdotes to make its points, which is insufficient to justify national legislation which will have far-reaching effects.

SPUC’s evidence-based submission

SPUC has submitted evidence to the same committee. In it, any claims and assertions are cited. It provides stories of women for whom pro-life vigils provided a lifeline, to them and their children – as well as the story of a woman who wishes a pro-life vigil had been there at the time of her abortion.

It is frustrating that those campaigning to normalise abortion are not scrutinised in the same way that pro-lifer people are. Their position is the assumed default, and therefore they are not held to the same standard concerning the evidence. This is no way to influence legislators and the law. I hope that the scrutiny committee recognises this.