Success! Northern Ireland enforces safe access zones

One year on from legislation passing in Stormont, Northern Ireland will implement Safe Access Zones outside abortion clinics from Friday – protecting vulnerable women from harassment and intimidation. Northern Ireland Humanists has welcomed this news and called for other UK jurisdictions to follow suit.

What are Safe Access Zones?

Recent years have seen a sharp uptick in the size and extent of religious protesters picketing abortion clinics in the UK. Using tactics imported from the United States, these protesters display graphic images, hurl insults, and call women and clinic staff ‘murderers’ as they approach the building. Women who have attempted to access abortion services have described this as a ‘gauntlet of abuse’.

Safe Access Zones are an innovation – piloted successfully in parts of the United States, Canada and Australia – to uphold women’s fundamental right to access healthcare. They require the space around abortion clinics to be free to access for all patients. This means protesters may have to move their signs and soapboxes down the street, or direct their attention to policymakers, rather than vulnerable women and girls, including women who are victims of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault.

The story in Northern Ireland

The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act was passed in March 2022. It was challenged by the Northern Ireland Attorney General but the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Act did not ‘disproportionately interfere’ with protesters’ rights. 

This means that from Friday 30 September 2023, women will be able to access clinics without being subjected to unsolicited approaches from activists. These activists’ primary intention is to cause distress when women are undertaking an emotional and significant decision. But it does not ban or in any way prevent anti-choice activists from organising such activities. Instead, it offers women a meaningful choice about whether they wish to engage with these activities or not. Humanists UK is a founding supporter of the Back Off campaign, coordinated by BPAS, which aims to change the law to make it possible to establish safe access zones around clinics. The campaign was started due to an intensification of anti-choice protests around clinics. At such protests, anti-choice activists have accosted women without solicitation, shouted abuse, exposed them to distressing and graphic images, either in leaflets or on large banners, filmed people entering and leaving clinics without their consent, and blocked the entrances to the clinics.

England, Wales, and Scotland

Northern Ireland is the first part of the UK to implement Safe Access Zones.

In the UK Parliament, legislation was passed to introduce Safe Access Zones in England and Wales in March this year. However, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has yet to implement the law. In the Scottish Parliament, a similar Bill is being considered to introduce safe access zones. Humanist Society Scotland has been campaigning to see this passed and implemented.

Northern Ireland Humanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator commented:

‘We welcome the introduction of safe access zones outside abortion clinics in Northern Ireland. This law balances the rights of free speech with women’s sexual and reproductive rights. It will not silence protesters – instead, it will remove the ability of protesters to harass women while doing so.

‘Once again Northern Ireland is ahead of the rest of the UK, while legislation in England and Wales has not been put into action, with no clear reason for delay. With growing protests outside abortion clinics harassing women and staff, these laws are needed now more than ever. It is time for the rest of the UK to catch up and implement their own safe access zones to uphold women’s reproductive and healthcare rights.’