Women recall 'intimidation' by anti-abortion protesters outside Scots health clinics

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Anti-abortion protesters outside a hospital left a woman feeling “trapped and very overwhelmed” when she went for the procedure, MSPs have heard.

Lily Roberts was a first-year student at Glasgow University when she attended the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in the city in 2018 to end a pregnancy.She addressed MSPs on Tuesday who are considering new legislation to create “buffer zones” outside facilities where abortions are carried out, which would prevent protests.

She said she encountered 15-20 anti-abortion campaigners outside the hospital.She recalled: “You simply couldn’t avoid it and it was very intimidating.” The co-ordinator for the Back Off Scotland campaign group told the Health Committee that prior to her experience, she “had no concept of the fact that protests happened in the UK”, adding she had believed it was a “very American occurrence”.She was in the hospital for seven hours, recalling: “I spent the entire time thinking about how I was going to get out, there was an element of feeling trapped and very overwhelmed by their presence.”Meanwhile, her partner was “approached by one of these people” when he went outside for some fresh air, and was given “leaflets containing misinformation about healthcare” by the protesters, Ms Roberts said.She added: “These protests aren’t neutral, they aren’t peaceful.

There’s something very dangerous and malicious about handing out information in that manner. When you are gathering and distributing misinformation like that, it is frankly really scary.“Buffer zones, if they had been in place when I had had my experience, would have made me feel really safe, and I think safety when you are accessing healthcare isn’t much to ask for.”The committee is considering the