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/


UK – JD Vance may disagree, but this anti-abortion activist isn’t a brutally censored dissident

The US vice-president’s avid concern for Livia Tossici-Bolt’s conviction is plain sinister
Catherine Bennett
Sun 6 Apr 2025

You know the feeling: you’re feeling sociable, why wouldn’t you make a sign saying “Here to talk, if you want to”, and head for a spot outside the nearest abortion clinic? And why wouldn’t some of its arriving patients want to pause before their appointments and satisfy your entirely innocent interest in their reproductive intentions?

This, give or take, amounted to the case by the prominent anti-abortion campaigner, Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was on Friday found guilty of twice breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). Her sign-holding outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic was, she had argued, not covered by a council-imposed safe zone, being “a mere invitation to speak”. And thus an invitation she could have happily extended to strangers just a little further from the clinic. But that did not suit Tossici-Bolt’s purpose. Nor does anything prevent her from staging anti-abortion rallies, distributing literature, or expressing her views on abortion anywhere except right in abortion patients’ faces outside clinics. These details, although similar regulations exist in parts of the US, routinely fail to surface in accounts by her prominent US supporters, with whose help Tossici-Bolt has been misrepresenting the illegal undermining of UK women’s reproductive rights as a noble quest for free speech.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/06/jd-vance-may-disagree-but-this-anti-abortion-activist-isnt-a-brutally-censored-dissident-livia-tossici-bolt


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/


Northern Ireland – Retired pastor denies illegal protest at abortion safe access zone in Coleraine

Clive Johnston disputes the charges on a devolution point and under the European Convention on Human Rights

Paul Higgins
Fri Mar 21 2025

A retired church pastor on Friday denied conducting an illegal protest at an abortion safe access zone in a Coleraine hospital.

Appearing on behalf of Clive Johnston at Coleraine Magistrates Court, defence counsel Aaron Thompson entered pleas of not guilty to the two charges on behalf of the 76-year-old retired pastor, revealing that the defendant disputes the charges on a devolution point and under article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2025/03/21/retired-pastor-denies-illegal-protest-at-abortion-safe-access-zone-in-coleraine/


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


Scotland – Anti-abortion group starts Lent hospital protests

March 5, 2025

US anti-abortion group has started a series of Lent protests outside a Glasgow hospital but says it will not break Scotland's new buffer zone law.

Campaigners from 40 Days For Life have pledged to stay outside the 200m (656ft) safe access zone around clinics.

Last month a 74-year-old woman became the first person in Scotland to be arrested for protesting near the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20drjg3ly0o


UK – Our hard-won rights are being erased one letter at a time

The US continues to roll back trans, gay and abortion rights, and the UK is not immune to any of it

Eva Wiseman
Sun 2 Mar 2025

I type this through nervous laughter but, haha, should we all be learning how to perform abortions? Just in case? Should we all perhaps, have a little stash of mifepristone in our makeup bags, a secret number in our phone? Something is happening in the US that requires our attention. Hard-earned rights are being erased and the speed at which history is being rewritten there does not bode well for our freedoms here. We are already seeing dark reflections in the glass. This month the Observer reported how British anti-abortion campaigners are echoing US vice-president JD Vance. He claimed our new buffer zone laws, preventing protests outside abortion clinics, were an attack on the “liberties of religious Britons”, shifting focus away from the reason they were implemented to a debate about freedom of speech.

Buffer zones (intended to protect staff and women using the clinics) are being targeted in a careful campaign by conservative Christian groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a group that wants to ban abortion, opposes same-sex marriage and, in the US, has helped at least 23 states pass legislation barring trans athletes from girls’ and women’s events as well as drafting legislation restricting gender-affirming treatment for minors. With only 1.4% of adolescents in the US identifying as transgender, LGBTQ+ rights groups accused the ADF of “whipping up a panic” over decisions better left to doctors, teachers and parents.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/02/our-hard-won-rights-are-being-erased-one-letter-at-a-time


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