It would send a terrible message for these people to be prosecuted. A good decision.

Hi Sarah

here on LC we like evidence based claims.

What statistics have you to support your claim that the protesters have been a factor in ‘whilst the protests have done nothing to decrease the number of women seeking abortions at the clinic, more are taking place at a later gestation’.

JV
PS – is it sensible for your reputation to boast that you like “Smashing Patriarchy”?

It sounds so like Wolfie Smith

Hi Just Visiting- as the article clearly states, that is not my claim. That is the claim of the people running the clinic and actually providing the abortions. Their statement is linked into the article.

Thanks,

Sarah McAlpine

Of course it is intimidation. It is copying the US model, and in time we can look forward to one of these tossers killing an abortion doctor. It is only a matter of time. The terrorist tactics of the US anti abortion movement have been very successful in shutting down abortion clinics.

Christian Taliban terrorism is very popular on the Right.

I don’t believe that protests like this will stop women having abortions. I believe that they will lead to the return of backstreet abortions. A friend of mine worked for BPAS. She said she did it because she had worked in a women’s hospital in the days before abortion was legal, where they picked up the pieces after the backstreet abortions.

And of course now we are in the era of abortion drugs via the internet. One woman has just been jailed for an abortion at 39 weeks, but for that one, there’ll be many, many more with early abortions before they showed.

Hi Sarah

> Hi Just Visiting- as the article clearly states, that is not my claim. That is the claim of the people running the clinic and actually providing the abortions.

Sure but it’s a claim you’ve repeated.

Do you know for example whether they presented evidence of this claim to the court?

It seems a central piece of evidence, that’s all.

Kinda need to know more about this to work out whether it was a good decision. Protesting? Fine. Graphic banners? Fine. Personal abuse or (real) intimidation of women going to the clinic? Not fine, but it might be a case of charging a few bad apples.

I totally see why you don’t like this kind of thing, especially as it’s likely to be targeted at people who are going through something difficult and are therefore vulnerable. But I think the bar for criminalising this stuff needs to be pretty high.

A rare victory for free speech.

The question is why they were charged in the first place. Causing distress to the public is not the same as causing distress to pro-abortion activists, or even to women who want an abortion.

JV – Do you know for example whether they presented evidence of this claim to the court?

Email them and ask them. Won’t take you that long, since you have a lot of time on your hands.

SMFS: Causing distress to the public is not the same as causing distress to … women who want an abortion.

Genuine stupidity on this site is rare but you do a good job of writing it anyway.

“The question is why they were charged in the first place.”

Yeah, I’d like an answer to that one too. Seems unusual, to say the least.

There is a mistake in the second paragraph, “part of pro-choice organisation Abort67.” Abort67 are a pro-life group.

Why shouldn’t the realities of abortion be shown? You can show pictures of ripped foxes on anti-hunt protests, or animals having awful things done to them on anti-vivisection protests.

As long as they’re peaceful, they’re allowed to protest. Shame on you for wanting to criminalise them.

@Laban
Do you see the difference between showing the result of killing another creature for sport and showing the result of a very difficult decision?

@10 – Well email them and ask. Who do you think you are politely asking the author for more details?

@12 because liberals like a woman to be offered the choice of abortion, and they dislike fox hunting. Duh! Deep down we all know free speech is ok as long as it’s something we want to hear.

Surely the issue here is not the distress. That only completes half the offence. The images would need to be threatening, abusive or insulting as well and that’s what would be considered. That distress has been (or could be) caused is presumably not in doubt.

@13 – see 15

It would be interesting to find out what LC posters think of the sentence of 8 years imprisonment on a woman who aborted her baby two days before its due date. Presumably the logic of a pro choice position would be that this woman should not have been prosecuted let alone sent to jail because of the mantra that a woman has an inalienable right to do what she wants to her body (which she may have in fact believed).

Did that actually happen Paul?

Any sources / URLs ?

To: Just Visiting @ 19

Here is a link to the news story which was on the bbc yesterday: –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19621675

9. Sunny Hundal

Genuine stupidity on this site is rare but you do a good job of writing it anyway.

And so we see the death of free speech in Britain. You don’t even see the problem do you? If three Muslims claim that the Satanic Verses causes them distress, that does not mean the community is distressed. There is a reason why the law is written the way it is. The test is not distress to some individuals. The test is still wrong in my opinion, but it is larger. In exactly the same way, distress to women seeking an abortion – while unpleasant – is not the same as causing distress to the community at large.

Although no doubt everyone here thinks free speech ought to be for people who agree with them. But I think you all will have some trouble applying it to these protesters while not allowing the Islamists to apply it to Rushdie.

From the Telegraph article linked in the OP, it seems the Abort67 pair were also charged with obstructing a police officer (because they refused to hand over their banner). So that was part of the charges they faced.

Without seeing the banner it’s hard to say whether I agree that the banner was threatening, abusive etc, and we don’t know whether they stood holding it silently or shouted at the women as they went past… and so on.

So I can’t comment on whether they should have been found guilty, but I do think something ought to be done about pro-life protesters at abortion clinics. They exist purely to scare and shame women. Their gory late-term abortion pictures (are they real? Are they doctored? Who knows!) bear no relation to the types of abortion the women they target will usually be getting.

In terms of freedom of speech, this is a special case in my opinion. While I find Abort67′s message abhorrent I wouldn’t have a problem with them protesting outside parliament for example. But being outside a clinic, and specifically targeting people who are trying to access basic medical care, that’s different.

People have a right to medical care in this country and I think this should include the right to access that medical care without fear of harrassment and intimidation. There is no other medical procedure at which prospective patients are targeted in this way.

I’m not sure what the woman who aborted at 39 weeks has to do with this story. That woman broke the law. The women harrassed at abortion clinics are trying to access legal abortions.

One more thing to add, which is that apparently these anti-choice groups are filming and photographing women going into the clinics. Kate Smurthwaite has more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHVuSlqbM1Q&feature=related

Their freedom of speech ends where women’s privacy and right to access medical care begins, I think.

@ Violet

“In terms of freedom of speech, this is a special case in my opinion. While I find Abort67?s message abhorrent I wouldn’t have a problem with them protesting outside parliament for example. But being outside a clinic, and specifically targeting people who are trying to access basic medical care, that’s different.”

I’m sympathetic to this, but how far do you want to go? Should we ban protests outside supermarkets, where customers are getting basic foodstuffs? Because the principle’s about the same.

“Their freedom of speech ends where women’s privacy and right to access medical care begins, I think.”

Probably not what you meant, but as phrased this would make it illegal to release secret footage of a female MP admitting they’d lied to the public, and outlaw any criticism of abortions and indeed all health services except willy-related ones…

@Violet (22)

“People have a right to medical care in this country and I think this should include the right to access that medical care without fear of harrassment and intimidation. There is no other medical procedure at which prospective patients are targeted in this way.”

Abortion is a medical procedure, but I would question whether it is, in itself, medical care.

Liposuction, breast enhancement etc. are medical procedures, but they are not medical care. The person who has them is exercising choice, but does not actually medically need them. A woman may need an abortion, medically speaking, if for example her pregnancy is ectopic, but most abortions are not necessary in that way.