Protection laws are long overdue

THE proposal to set up buffer zones around hospitals is based on a simple principle – women attending abortion clinics do not need advice shouted at them by strangers on the pavement outside.

Too often that uninvited intrusion is a bellowing gauntlet of noise and signage designed to intimidate, and not to inform, women about their choices.

The tactic of attempting to bully women out of making decisions about their own bodies has drifted across the Atlantic from the US.

Its Supreme Court decision allowing individual states to ban the procedure has invigorated pro-life campaigners.

Much of the opposition to abortion comes from sincerely held religious convictions about the sanctity of life.

People are entitled to their views but when these are combined with aggressive, intolerant and self-righteous attitudes of pavement protesters, the situation becomes dangerous.

The consensus from yesterday’s Scottish summit on access to clinics is encouraging.

Glasgow City Council wants to set up a pilot project that could lead to legislation banning protest within a certain distance of clinics.

Similar measures are already in place in at least one London borough council, so finding a way of co-ordinating with clinics and law enforcement agencies should be possible.

A sound legal solution that respects the rights of women attending clinics and does not infringe on the right to protest must be found, too.

Progress by consensus – a principle often missing in public discourse in Scotland – is the correct counterweight to the intolerance of anti-abortion loudmouths.