It’s 7:10am and before I climb out of my car, I look around to see how many people have gathered outside the Marie Stopes healthcare clinic in Manchester, where I work. There is normally always someone there, but this period is different, because while Lent means giving up chocolate for some, for those working in and seeking abortion care, it marks the beginning of 40 Days for Life – a constant, round-the-clock, prayer vigil outside abortion clinics worldwide, for 40 days and 40 nights. Its aim? To end access to abortion care for good.
Run by American CEO, Shawn Carney, who describes himself on LinkedIn as an “experienced leader and CEO with a demonstrated history of aggressive growth in non-profit organization” – 40 Days for Life spearheads a consistent and growing anti-choice presence funded mainly by private American donors, with an agenda far outside of the USA’s borders and whose target includes the United Kingdom.
40 Days for Life has increased its income by 325% in the last four years, shutting-down Planned Parenthood clinics along the way and launching a series of male-led podcasts with the latest title being “No wimps allowed”. Anti-choice participants “pay to pray” outside of clinics and take part in a campaign built on fearmongering, medically inaccurate information and what they call “the right to peaceful protest”.
But anti-choice protesting is far from peaceful. Over the past 25 years, all of Marie Stopes UK’s main centres have been targeted by anti-choice groups who gather outside to shame and intimidate women into continuing a pregnancy. And as one of the first points of contact inside the clinic, I see the distress and harm they cause on a daily basis.
Harassment can include watching and videoing women and team members entering the clinic, distributing medically inaccurate information – such as breast cancer being a possible complication of abortion - calling out “Mum”, “murderer”, “baby killer”, loud singing and prayer, throwing water and lighting candles, physical and verbal aggression, vandalising property and breastfeeding babies in view of the clinic. I’ve also seen women turn up in tears, clutching graphic images and sometimes dolls.
Yet, unless a clinic has a designated Safe Access Zone outside, there is very little that can be done to counteract the continued assault on women and their legal right to access healthcare, free from emotional manipulation, or reproductive coercion.
More commonly called a Buffer zone, a Safe Access Zone is an area surrounding abortion clinics where gatherings and activities that have a detrimental effect on the clinic are banned. In 2018, Ealing Council in London, won a historic lawsuit to implement a Pubic Space Protection Order (PSPO) which allowed them to enact a Safe Access Zone. This was followed shortly after by Richmond Council.
But with just two clinics in the whole of the UK having active Safe Access Zones and the Home Office’s 2018 inquiry into harassment outside of abortion clinics drastically underestimating the number of women affected by continued harassment, protection from abuse in the UK is a postcode lottery, meaning women and their families must instead navigate their way through anti-choice groups, during what is already a vulnerable time in their lives. Marie Stopes team members must also learn to ignore the daily abuse they face simply for doing their jobs.
Sadly, with the rise of social media, harassment is not just limited to outside abortion clinics. Anti-choice organisations have also taken to relentlessly trolling pro-choice Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages, inciting hatred and targeting specific individuals who identify as pro-choice.
When I took my job at Marie Stopes UK, I knew a big part of my role would involve protecting women from the relentless and cruel abuse inflicted on them by anti-choice individuals and groups. Individuals who believe wholly in their right to violate the “right to privacy” freely granted to those accessing any other NHS service.
But I also know that the people who hold these views are not representative of the country as a whole. Recent research from Marie Stopes International as part of its #SmashAbortionStigma campaign showed that the UK is a pro-choice nation. With nine in 10 adults in support of a woman’s right to choose, including 88% of men and 91% of women – anti-choice views in the UK really are a minority.
And with recent pro-choice victories across the Irish Sea in both Ireland and Northern Ireland and activism more popular than ever, we still have a chance to ensure access to abortion care remains top of the agenda as well as introduce national Safe Access Zones across the UK.
But if 2020 is a crossroads year for the pro-choice movement, the same is true for the anti-choice movement, and with a growing UK presence, the upcoming 2020 US Presidential elections and a possible anti-choice majority in the US senate, this year also has the chance to send women’s reproductive choice into a downward spiral.
So, while the UK continues to step forward in extending women’s right to choose, 40 Days for Life shows us that we must never take a woman’s right to choose for granted. And all of us, the nine in 10 UK adults who do believe in access to abortion care, must stay vigilant to defend that right – and help smash abortion stigma for good.
Shelley Doherty is front of house assistant for for Marie Stopes UK Manchester.