On 19 February 2025, Police Scotland reported that a 74-year-old woman had been arrested outside an abortion clinic at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow. Her arrest was in defiance of the Safe Access Zones bill which was passed in June 2024 and prohibits protests against abortions within a 200-meter area of a hospital or clinic that provides abortion services. The woman in question was part of anti-abortion campaigns funded by the Texas-based group 40 Days for Life, who have announced more protests planned daily from the 5 March to the 13 April. Do these protests suggest a rise in anti-abortion sentiment in the wake of the Abortion Services Act?
The issue of anti-abortion protests is tricky to navigate and toes the line between the right to protest and the right to access healthcare. Protestors do not know the specific context and circumstance of each patient and each abortion, particularly in cases where the mother’s life is endangered. The deployment of graphic images and inflammatory claims of “killing babies” in the means of “protesting” can only be viewed as a total lack of empathy towards the mother and her well-being. The nature of these protests only seeks to target vulnerable patients and make what was already a traumatic, life-altering experience even more distressing.
The new buffer zone law therefore helps protect vulnerable patients by reducing the chances of encountering such protests in real life, providing patients with a safer experience. Yet the recent arrest has sparked numerous debates and outrage online, potentially worsening the long-term mental effects that patients will have to grapple with.
Online fury serves as a constant, unnecessary reminder of the experience throughout patients’ daily lives. Whilst studies find that Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom are experiencing an increasingly positive attitude towards abortions, this new bill may polarise the abortion debate. Those in opposition may become more and more outspoken. With the campaigners deriving funding from a US-based group, there is no doubt the protests are in part connected to Vice-President J.D Vance’s recent comments surrounding Scottish Laws on abortion. Vance claimed that the Scottish government had begun distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law – a comment which the Scottish government was quick to brand as “incorrect.”
Whether Vance was misinformed or lying for his political gain is up to one to decide based on their perception of Vance. Nevertheless, his comments undeniably serve as an embodiment of the polarisation and politicisation of the abortion debate, evidencing how quickly political misinformation can threaten the lives and well-being of citizens. It also represents the need for greater political integrity, honesty, and accountability, but in an international political landscape dominated by Trump’s America, this seems to be becoming an increasingly unlikely possibility.
“Keep Abortion Safe, Legal & Accessible” by World Can’t Wait is licensed under CC BY 2.0.