The Home Office confirmed last month that ‘buffer zones’, providing staff and patients with safe access to abortion clinics, will come into force on Thursday, October 31. The Finsbury Park branch of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), an NHS-funded charity, said it had experienced groups of up to 30 people, with some dressed as monks, protesting outside the clinic intimidating staff and patients as well as anti-abortion leaflets being handed out. Clinic manager Vikki Webb said: “All of the staff at BPAS Finsbury Park are very relieved that from the October 31 we will no longer have to live with the constant threat of protesters appearing at our clinic door to intimidate and upset our patients and staff.
“It simply isn’t fair that women and staff fear coming to the clinic because they may be handed a leaflet by a woman following them up the path with a baby in a pushchair, or encounter 30 people stood outside the clinic, some dressed as monks, watching them access private medical care – both of which have happened in recent years at our clinic.” Speaking in her latest newsletter on the law’s introduction, Hornsey and Friern Barnet MP Catherine West described the enforcement as long overdue. She said: “No woman should ever face intimidation for accessing abortion services, yet despite parliament voting for ‘buffer zones’ almost two years ago, with my full support, the Tories failed to bring them into law.
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