Scottish ministers accused of failing women who cannot get later abortions

Campaigners say ‘extremely vulnerable women’ are having to travel hundreds of miles to visit English clinics

Libby Brooks, Scotland correspondent
Mon 21 Apr 2025

Campaigners have warned Scottish ministers that they are failing in their legal and moral duties as growing numbers of “extremely vulnerable women” have to travel hundreds of miles south because they cannot access later-term abortions in Scotland.

Not one of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards provide abortion care after 20 weeks except in the specific cases of foetal abnormality or threat to a woman’s life. This is despite the Scottish government promising to rectify this “explicit inequality” three years ago, and abortion being legal on broad grounds until 24 weeks across the UK.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/21/scottish-government-failing-women-who-cant-access-later-term-abortions-campaigners-say


More than 100 anti-abortion protesters target Glasgow hospital

Apr 14, 2025
By Gemma Clark

MORE than 100 anti-abortion protesters gathered near Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on Sunday evening. The event was part of the Texas-based group 40 Days for Life’s efforts to "pray to end abortion" around the world.

… Sunday's protest demonstrates just how close anti-abortion activists can still get to hospitals, and serves as a reminder of how modest the original buffer zone proposals were.

Continued:  https://www.thenational.scot/news/25088171.100-anti-abortion-protesters-target-glasgow-hospital/


Scotland – Police decline to intervene as anti-abortion group ignores buffer zone

March 23, 2025
By Xander Elliards

POLICE did not respond after being called to a fringe group of anti-abortion protesters who were breaching Scotland’s buffer zone regulations.

The Scottish Family Party – who, as well as wanting to see abortion rights rolled back, oppose same-sex marriage, sperm and egg donation, and the clause banning harassment in the Equality Act – held a small-scale protest outside the public entrance to the Chalmers Centre in Edinburgh on Saturday evening.

Continued: https://www.thenational.scot/news/25030333.police-decline-intervene-anti-abortion-group-ignores-buffer-zone/


Trump’s pardons spark fresh fights over abortion clinic safety

Democratic state lawmakers are trying to bolster protections, but those efforts are imperiled by legal fights.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein and Amanda Friedman
03/19/2025

Abortion rights supporters across the country are scrambling to strengthen protections for clinics in response to moves by the Trump administration that they believe will put providers and patients in danger.

Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills in Illinois, Michigan, New York and elsewhere to restrict demonstrations outside of clinics, increase criminal penalties for people who harass doctors and patients, or allocate more funds for abortion providers to buy security cameras, bulletproof glass and other protections.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/abortion-clinic-safety-trump-pardons-00234319


SCOTUS Just Gave Abortion Clinics a Rare Win

But more significant threats from Trump’s Department of Justice remain.

Feb 24, 2025
Julianne McShane,  Mother Jones

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed abortion rights advocates a rare win when they declined to take up a pair of cases seeking to challenge a decades-old decision limiting protesters’ actions near the entrances of abortion clinics. But, experts say that even though this result is positive, the decision’s reach is limited and does nothing to roll back the near impunity the Trump administration has extended to anti-abortion protesters who target abortion clinics.

Anti-abortion activists who brought the cases sought to overrule Hill v. Colorado, a 2000 decision in which a majority of the justices upheld a Colorado law requiring that abortion protesters obtain consent before coming within eight feet of another person to speak to them or distribute leaflets within 100 feet of the entrance of a health care clinic, including abortion clinics.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/scotus-just-gave-abortion-clinics-a-rare-win/


‘Shameful’ anti-abortion protesters slammed over month-long ‘vigils’ targeting Glasgow hospital

The 40 Days for Life campaign group confirmed that it plans to hold a series of 'prayer vigils' outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in March and April despite Scotland's newly established buffer zone laws.

By Ruth Suter, Craig Meighan, PA Scotland
24 FEB 2025

Pro-choice campaigners have hit out at a US group's "shameful" plans to stage anti-abortion protests outside a Glasgow hospital for over a month.

The Texas-founded 40 Days for Life hosts demonstrations around the world and has announced intentions to hold "prayer vigils" in clear view of the maternity unit at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow.

Continued: https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/shameful-anti-abortion-protesters-slammed-31069308


US anti-abortion group pledges not to break Scotland’s buffer zones law

Jody Harrison
Sun 23 February 2025

An American anti-abortion group planning a series of protests outside a Scottish hospital has backed down following an arrest at one of its protests. 40 Days For Life said its members will stay now stay outside the 200-metre exclusion zone in place around the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

The group is planning to hold “vigils” on Hardgate Road, across from the hospital, from March 5 until April 13. However, it has pledged not to break the country’s laws around buffer zones while doing so.

Continued; https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-anti-abortion-group-pledges-004000020.html


Prayer and prosecutions: the US ‘hate group’ waging war over Britain’s abortion clinic buffer zones

Anti-abortion campaigners cheer as JD Vance brands safe zones an attack on ‘liberties of religious Britons’

Shanti Das
Sun 16 Feb 2025

Rachael Clarke remembers life before buffer zones. Almost every day, the head of staff at the UK’s biggest abortion provider would get emails from staff worried about protesters outside clinics – and women crying in the waiting room.

Some of the protesters had huge placards with graphic images of foetuses. Others held candlelit vigils and said prayers. One scattered baby clothes in the bushes. “We had every­thing from people telling women that having an abortion was putting their baby in a meat grinder to people following nurses down the road in the dark telling them they were killing babies,” says Clarke.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/16/prayer-and-prosecutions-the-us-hate-group-waging-war-over-britains-abortion-clinic-buffer-zones


JD Vance decried as extremist over attack on UK abortion clinic safe zones

US vice-president’s comments, part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe, called inaccurate and misogynistic

Alexandra Topping
Sat 15 Feb 2025

JD Vance has been labelled an “extremist” after he launched a broadside against the UK’s efforts to protect women seeking an abortion.

The US vice-president’s criticisms of UK and Scottish policies on safe access zones around abortion clinics – part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe on Friday – were derided as inaccurate and misogynistic by a number of groups, politicians and governments.

Heidi Stewart, the chief executive of Bpas, the UK’s leading provider of abortion services, said safe zones – buffer areas of 150 metres around abortion clinics designed to stop women being harassed with leaflets, shown pictures of foetuses, or having to pass by vigils – were vital to protect women’s access to essential healthcare in an “overwhelmingly pro-choice country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/jd-vance-decried-as-extremist-over-attack-on-uk-abortion-clinic-safe-zones


I thought Britain was worlds away from Trump’s America – until I needed to get an abortion

I quickly learned that the decision to terminate a pregnancy wasn’t purely a matter of 'my body, my choice’

Anonymous
Thu 28 Nov 2024

Roughly 36 hours after I first heard about the horrifying Maga taunt “your body, my choice”, I learned that I was pregnant, despite having a contraceptive coil. My relief that I lived in the UK, not the US – where abortion is rapidly becoming illegal or inaccessible at best – was profound. Yet I realised that I had no idea how to access abortion, having complacently assumed that it would always be available if I needed it. Some fraught Googling led me to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. A couple of days later, I had my first appointment and very quickly learned that it wasn’t purely “my choice”, even in Britain.

Of all the words you don’t want to hear by surprise, “transvaginal” is up there. I thought the scan to determine how pregnant I was would be the kind where a technician slathers goop on your stomach. I wasn’t told until I arrived that it would be internal, because of the assumed early gestation. A second surprise: the coil was gone, most likely sucked out by my period cup. Later that day, I had a phone consultation. The nurse told me two doctors would have to sign off on the termination and asked me to justify why my life would be negatively affected if I were forced to continue with the pregnancy. Horrified, I said I should just be able to say: I don’t want to. She was extremely kind and agreed, but said this was a legal requirement under the Abortion Act.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/28/abortion-rights-women-donald-trump-us-britain