 Rydd-rwyddades. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the health, social care and sport committee another year in 2021. I have received apologies for today's meeting from Ruth Maguire MSP and James Dorran MSP is attending as a substitute. I begin our scrutiny of the abortion services safe access zone Scotland bill. As Gillian Macc transporting MSP is the member in charge of the bill Gillian will not participate in the committee'supbeat scrutiny By virtue of rule 9.13A2b. 1.13A2B. Ross Greer MSP will attend in our place as a committee substitute by virtue of rule 12.2A2. Welcome Ross. The first item on our apologies by virtue of rule 12.2.3A, Gillian Mackay MSP, is attending the meeting today as the member in charge of the bill and welcome Gillian. The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take item 5 in private and whether to consider in private future meetings evidence heard at those meetings as part of its stage 1 scrutiny of the Abortion Safe Access Zones Scotland Bill. Are members agreed? Thank you. The next item on our agenda is a presentation from Emily Oughtley, who undertook commissioned research for the committee on an international comparison of Abortion Safe Access Zones legislation. It will come, Emily. I invite you to give a presentation of no more than 15 minutes, after which I will invite members to ask questions. Good morning. My name is Emily Oughtley and I am a lecturer in law at the University of Winchester. As you have just explained, I was asked to undertake an international comparison of Safe Access Zones legislation in order to support the committee's scrutiny of the Abortion Services Safe Access Scotland Bill. I conducted this research using secondary research methods, specifically doctrinal analysis of the relevant legislation and case law and a literature review, principally of parliamentary reports but also relevant academic literature where this was available. I have looked at Safe Access Zones legislation from England and Wales, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, The Isle of Man, Australia, Canada, the USA and the Republic of Ireland. Within Australia, Canada and the United States of America, there is a variety of Safe Access Zones legislation. All eight Australian states and territories have Safe Access Zones legislation. Six Canadian provinces have Safe Access Zones legislation, and then four states in the USA have Safe Access Zones legislation. In total, I looked at 24 jurisdictions and their Safe Access Zones legislation. The Safe Access Zones Bill in the Republic of Ireland is currently making its way through the Irish Parliament, so it is not yet law. It is widely expected that the Government Bill will eventually become law, though, of course, there may be some differences from the bill as passed by the DAL in November 2023, which is what I used in my research. I should also add that, given the scope of the research, I have not examined the Scottish Bill as introduced in detail. Spain is another country that has Safe Access Zones legislation, but I excluded the jurisdiction from my research due to difficulties in accessing the law in English, and Spain has a civil rather than common law legal system, which made it different. In relation to each Safe Access Zones law, I considered the details of the provisions contained within the legislation, the context informing the introduction of the legislation, any challenges encountered during or after the passage of the legislation, and also the impact of the legislation. I will summarise my four key findings—I will not speak for very long, just so that there is plenty of time to respond to members' questions. My first key finding concerns the details of the provisions that are contained within the legislation. Safe Access Zones legislation is characterised by creating, or providing for the creation of, a protective area around premises where abortion services are provided. However, the details of the provisions contained within the Safe Access Zones legislation are looked at very quite considerably between jurisdictions, particularly with regard to the method for the creation of the protected areas, the size of the protected areas, the behaviour that is prohibited within the protective areas, and also the penalties for violating the law. I will comment briefly on each of those elements, and then the four comparison tables included at the end of my report provide further detail. First, with regard to the method for the creation of the protected areas, the key point of distinction is whether Safe Access Zones apply automatically to all premises where abortion services are provided, as in England and Wales, or whether there is some additional step that is required to create a Safe Access Zone outside a particular premises. That additional step might be mere notification by premises operators, as in Northern Ireland, or it might be a more formal application and review process, like the one that has been established in New Zealand. Alternatively, the legislation might afford some official power to either create Safe Access Zones, as in the Australian Capital Territory, or to identify protected premises, which you can see in Alberta and Nova Scotia. Second, with regard to the size of the protected areas, this typically falls somewhere between 50 metres and 150 metres. However, the protected areas in the US legislation are noticeably smaller. The largest in Colorado is 100 feet, which, if my maths is right, is approximately 30 metres. Colorado and also Montana in the US then have an additional smaller floating zone around persons who are within that larger fixed zone, which is essentially to prevent protesters approaching clinic users and staff outside the clinic. A key distinction with regard to the size of the protected areas is whether or not there is scope for extension or reduction of the protected area. In England and Wales, for example, all Safe Access Zones are 150 metres. That cannot be extended if 150 metres is insufficient, nor reduced if 150 metres is excessive. In contrast, a Safe Access Zone in Northern Ireland is 100 metres as standard, but it can be extended up to 250 metres for a particular clinic where 100 metres would not be adequate to afford safe access to the premises. In Queensland, Australia, Safe Access Zones are 150 metres as standard, but a smaller or greater distance can be prescribed by regulation. Queensland is a relatively rare example of the law allowing the protected area to be reduced in size and not just extended. Queensland is also fairly unusual because it does not set an upper limit for the extension of Safe Access Zones. The size of the protected areas is sometimes connected to the method of creation for the protected areas. Quite often, where the protected areas are not created automatically, the size of the area will be determined on a case-by-case basis as part of the process for establishing a protected area. There may be an upper limit set out in law for that, as in New Zealand, or a minimum size, which you can see in the Australian capital territory. Thirdly, with regard to the behaviour that is prohibited within protective areas, both England and Wales and Northern Ireland prohibit any act that is done with the intent of or reckless as to whether it has the effect of influencing a person or their decision, obstructing or impeding access to the premises or causing harassment, alarm or distress. In contrast, most other jurisdictions specify particular behaviours or activities that are prohibited. The prohibited activities and the way that they are formulated in the law vary, but some common examples include recording persons, obstructing or impeding access to premises, threatening and intimidating persons, expressing disapproval of abortion, advising or persuading persons from accessing or providing abortion, informing persons on matters relating to abortion and continued or repeated observation of premises. Again, the US stands out, particularly in Colorado and Montana, where all that is prohibited is protesters physically approaching clinic users and staff in close proximity to the premises. Finally, with regard to penalties, all the jurisdictions that I looked at impose fines, although the amount varies. The key distinction there is whether or not imprisonment is also a possibility. Anti-abortion protesters who violate the law can be imprisoned in most Australian states and territories, with the exception of the Australian capital territory. Most Canadian provinces, with the exception of Quebec. Three out of the five US states and the Isle of Man, and at the moment there is currently provision for imprisonment in the Irish Bill as well. But notably imprisonment is not an option in England and Wales, Northern Ireland or New Zealand. So moving on from the details of the provisions contained within the legislation to my second key finding, which concerns the context informing the introduction of the legislation. Typically safe access zone legislation is passed in response to concern about current or future protest in the vicinity of premises where abortion services are provided and a desire to ensure good access to abortion services. In England and Wales, the number of women who are currently affected by protests was emphasised in the parliamentary debates and elsewhere the frequency, continuity and severity of protests have been relevant. In some places a perceived escalation of some kind has been significant. The Isle of Man is a really interesting example because there hadn't really been any protest activity of the kind we're talking about. But after anti-abortion protesters had visited the island to protest against proposed reform of abortion law more generally, members of the House of Keys were concerned that the Isle of Man would experience more protest activity, including outside premises where abortions are provided once abortion was more widely available there. So there was a perceived risk of anti-abortion protest activity in the future and we see this elsewhere. There was concern in South Australia that the state would become the only Australian state without safe access zone legislation and therefore protests would become a big problem there. The existing lack of legal measures that could adequately deal with protests in the vicinity of premises where abortion services are provided was a common justification for safe access zone legislation across all the jurisdictions I looked at. But interestingly those who opposed the passage of safe access zone legislation would often argue that laws already existed that could respond to the perceived problem. Often but not always provision for safe access zones is made alongside or shortly after broader abortion law reform that liberalises access to abortion services. So the Isle of Man is a good example of the former and Northern Ireland and New Zealand, the latter. However England and Wales and indeed Scotland doesn't fit that pattern. Just to note that the climate of severe anti-abortion violence is unique to the United States though there have been instances of anti-abortion violence in both Australia and Canada. That sort of unique context is reflected in the US law which as I've already mentioned is quite noticeably different to the other jurisdictions I considered as part of my research. Moving on to my third key finding which concerns the challenges encountered during or after the passage of the legislation. I think it stood out quite clearly to me that the most significant challenge encountered both during and after the passage of safe access zone legislation has been in achieving a satisfactory balance between the rights of those who wish to protest at clinics and then clinic users and staff. Of course it's necessary to strike an appropriate balance in order to comply with human rights and or constitutional obligations. This challenge is really clear from the parliamentary debates where those who oppose safe access zone legislation criticise bills for going too far and others struggle to frame the bills in such a way as to strike that appropriate balance. So there's a really close connection here between this challenge and the details of the provisions contained within the legislation particularly with regard to the activities that are prohibited within the protective area. The challenge is also clear from a number of court cases in Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia and the USA that were brought by protesters who claim that safe access zone legislation violated their rights and the rights of other protesters. Most of those legal challenges have been unsuccessful including the challenge to the Northern Irish law. So the UK Supreme Court acknowledged that making it an offence to do an act within a safe access zone with the intention of or being reckless as to whether it has the effect of influencing a protected person, interferes with protesters' rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly under articles 9, 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However the court ultimately concluded that this interference was proportionate and therefore the law was compatible with the convention. A second challenge, which is worth briefly mentioning, is a delay in safe access zones coming into effect outside premises providing abortion services once that legislation has been passed. We might expect that delay where zones aren't automatically created and instead a subject to an application process as in New Zealand. But there's also been a delay in England and Wales, so the relevant bill received royal assent on 2 May 2023, but the section which establishes safe access zones is still not in force. Well it wasn't on our check last night anyway. It's expected to sort of happen soon, there's publication of non statutory guidance coming and the commencement of the relevant section will follow in due course. There's been a consultation period on the draft guidance, but I'm not aware at the moment of a specified date. My fourth and final key finding, which concerns the impact of the legislation, the availability of evidence on the impact of safe access zone legislation is generally very limited, though there has been some academic research on the efficacy of safe access zones in Australia by Ronle Cifris and Tania Penavic. They interviewed professionals from across Australia and concluded that the safe access zones were achieving their objectives of protecting the rights of patients and staff to privacy, facilitating safe access to services without fear and also in reducing misinformation and stigma. Although the researchers noted that some protesters had maintained a presence outside the protective areas, they thought it was the distancing away from the premises that was significant. I suspect the lack of evidence and research to date is at least in part due to the fact that much of the safe access zone legislation has been passed only very recently. Sources cited in my report have called for further research to be done in due course and the legislation in Northern Ireland and the bill in the Republic of Ireland requires a review of the efficacy of both safe access zones and the operation of the act, so that might prove to be a useful source of impact in the future. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering members' questions. Thank you very much, Emily. I will open up now to members' questions. On that final point, Emily, on how recent most of the measures have been implemented so the lack of evidence on impact, is there even any anecdotal indication in terms of the reaction from those who were foreign against it? There is a bit of a difference between actual impact versus perceived impact. Were you able, in your research, to pick up the reaction of those on either side of the debate once the schemes had been implemented in their areas? Did they feel that it had an impact? Definitely. When you read anecdotal evidence from service providers and clinic users, it is generally very positive even when a presence of protesters has been maintained outside the zones. They seem to feel better because they are kept further away, it seems. In terms of reaction of those who opposed, I have not come across much other than where challenges have been brought in the courts, but people on the whole seem to feel better when you read anecdotal reports. The first one revolves around what has been said about a slippery slope argument in other jurisdictions, where you have brought in, for a very specific reason—we are all aware of it—this is very specific, and the scope of the bill is very tight. It is about this, but this bill also says something about private dwellings. The slippery slope argument is that we will bring this in here, but maybe we will then be able to say that we will do something else a little bit later, and we will do something else, and we will start to erode what happens within a private dwelling. I have not seen the phrase slippery slope used in any of the reports that I have seen, but there are concerns particularly about the fact that legislation is often targeting abortion in particular, so people are often concerned about that. Although I am not sure that I have seen concern about it spreading, the concern seems to be more about why it is not applying in general, as opposed to targeting abortion. With regard to private dwellings, you can see that in Canada and also some of the US, not the buffer zone legislation itself, but some of the other legislation that protects doctors and clinic staff's homes. You can see in some places as well, the same kind of legislation being used for anti-vax kind of protests, particularly out of Covid-19, you saw some of those. Interestingly, there seems to be less opposition to that than the abortion safe access zones. One of the Canadian states that does not have safe access zones for abortion does have safe access zones for anti-vax type protests, which is interesting. There is something else that I was going to say, and it has now slipped out of my mind. Have I answered your question? There is something else that I was going to say. It does not seem to have been a major concern. The bigger concern was why you are picking on this very narrow thing. The other question, especially in other places, is revolving around silent prayer. Firstly, it is sometimes impossible to know, but sometimes it is if you are standing in a circle, for example. If you are silent, you do not have signs or anything. One of the other things to talk about here, and I would like it to touch on if you can, is that if you are a nun or a priest, then you are more than entitled to wear what you want. It is different to me putting it on and going and standing, which is going to be overt. The question revolves around that silent prayer and for all new members of the public, but then also for more specifically clergy nuns and people like that. It varies depending on jurisdiction about whether or not silent prayer is included in the prohibited activities. In one of the jurisdictions, the point was actually made that silent prayer would not be included because the wording of the prohibited activities included protest and they did not regard silent prayer as an act of protest. However, where the legislation is framed more broadly so that it prohibits any act that has a consequence of, silent prayer tends to fall within that. It is outside the scope of this research, but there is other research that looks into the effects and impact of silent prayer on people accessing clinics. I think that when you read through some of the parliamentary reports, they cite a lot of that research about what is the impact on silent prayer on people. They talk about how the fact that you are doing it very close to a clinic can be the problem, as opposed to doing it somewhere else. It is more than just silent prayer is what comes across from the parliamentary reports. Silent prayer has been a big issue in the English and Welsh legislation in the sense that at the very final stage there was some amendments tabled and one of those included specifically excluding silent prayer from the legislation. That was not successful, but in the draft guidance that was published recently that they have just closed the consultation on, silent prayer seemed to be excluded from that guidance. The Government were accused of watering down the protection from the legislation. That is silent prayer. I remember the other point I was going to say in regards to your first question, which was that England and Wales is unique in the regard that it is within general protest legislation. If you look at most of the other jurisdictions, safe access zones for abortion are either a standalone piece of legislation or they are within abortion legislation more generally, but in England and Wales the safe access zones are in quite controversial protest legislation. I wonder if there might be a connection there in terms of not necessarily a slippery slope, but it is linking to broader protest in that sense. Is that answering your question? Yes, but do you think that it might expand on that a little bit? That point about the difference between it being in protest legislation and not, I am sorry, I just maybe haven't quite understood the relevance of that. It's just that it's seen as I suppose, well different people see it in different ways of course, but I think there might be a perception and that comes across in some of the hands-on reports that anti-abortion protest outside clinics is being lumped together with normal protest. Whereas advocates of safe access zone legislation tend to see the protests outside of abortion clinics as being of a very different nature, as being something unique. You read comments like it's not real protest, it's more like harassment. I was just thinking in terms of your slippery slope point that in England and Wales at least some people might argue or might think that that looks like it's already happened because there's other protest restrictions on protest within that broader legislation. Emma Harper. Thanks, thanks, convener. Just on the back of Sandra Ash's question about silent prayer, does the other legislation look at the number of people standing outside a clinic, for instance, because there is a difference between one person that might look like they're a minister or a priest or something versus 10 people? So does the legislation cover when is it okay to walk into a place or stand outside in silence? Yes, so as far out of the legislation I've looked at that there's none that kind of set, you know, a limit on X number of people is okay or not. They also are quite broad, I think generally in what they prohibit. So they generally tend to prohibit as opposed to spelling out what would be okay. So you're left in a kind of a bit of a guessing game about what would be okay. I have seen it, it's not legislation but in England and Wales where they've been currently relying on PSPOs, protective space protection orders as kind of in the meantime they act a bit like a safe access zone. The one in Ealing has a designated area set up for protest and I think really out of the laws I've looked at that's the only example of somewhere that has kind of specifically said what is okay. Is that answering your question? I haven't come across anything else. Okay, thank you very much. It's been really useful. I'm interested in, he said that some of the legislation you've looked at actually does list prohibited behaviours but I think the sense we get here is that we're likely to not go for that option. So just wondered in terms of the people who have to implement the law, do you, is there anywhere that they're indicating whether they found one way better or the other? Yeah, I think that's definitely some of the concern particularly when you read some of the parliamentary debates about how will we characterise a particular behaviour? So some of the legal challenges in terms of the human rights compatibility have said like oh well we could prohibit this behaviour but not this behaviour. You see that that was the root of the Northern Ireland challenge really and the Supreme Court were kind of like well for the people who are the police and clinic staff how are they going to characterise whether what you're doing is sort of meaning to influence or harass someone or you're just doing one of these okay things and that's why although the legislation that lists prohibited behaviour does list it specifically they do when you look at it kind of list pretty much everything you can think of and that isn't an attempt to make it easier to enforce because if you were to try and and that makes sense if you try and characterise an interaction between two people it's very difficult to know what's going on and you see that really in the Northern Ireland Supreme Court judgment. It's a different subject I suppose it's about like the rights of protesters versus the rights of a woman who's seeking an abortion and in our briefing papers it says that United Nations Committee on the Limitation of Discrimination Against Women found that several aspects of the law on abortion in Northern Ireland at the time violated women's rights and as part of the report they made a number of recommendations that was to protect women from harassment by anti-abortion protesters by investigating complaints and prosecuting and then punishing perpetrators so I'm interested in aspects where the rights of women seeking medical care supersedes the issues of somebody's right to protest and free speech. You see that again going back to the Northern Ireland UK Supreme Court judgment the court do explicitly say that we are prioritising the rights of women accessing abortions obviously they have they talked about their justifications for doing that but they do make that point that they are prioritising those rights. You see throughout the court judgments and the parliamentary debates this constant kind of balancing act about we need safe access zones but how do we frame that in a way that does achieve a balance so you'll have those who oppose safe access zones who will say that you know by virtue of having them you've achieved the wrong balance but generally when you look through the parliamentary reports that's what most of the time is spent on is you know if we phrase it this way or we prohibit this behaviour are we going a bit too far are we tipping the balance the other way so it's it's as I said it's really the biggest challenge with this kind of legislation but it comes out more clearly that the CEDAW report doesn't doesn't mention the rights of the protesters there I guess they had quite a narrow focus but the parliamentary reports and the court judgments do. Thanks very much and thanks for your research on this it's very interesting. A couple of questions regarding impact and where we are so you mentioned a couple of legal cases that have been unsuccessful are you aware of any legal challenges that have been successful? The first question and the second question was where the legislation is in place have there been convictions or charges brought I suppose now clearly you're looking at this in a global sense and some of the jurisdictions will be very different but in jurisdictions perhaps Ireland and others that are more similar to Scotland have been interested to your perspective on that and then I'll follow up on the UK legislation after that so thanks. In terms of successful challenges in the US there was an earlier version of the Massachusetts law than what is there currently and that made it an offence to knowingly enter or remain within 35 feet so about 11 meters of the premises and the US Supreme Court held that that was unconstitutional on the ground that it placed two greater burden on the protesters first amendment rights to free speech and it struck that law down but it did and that's the only example I found of that happening with safe access zone legislation so for example the Supreme Court upheld the Colorado law I know that there are more cases that I didn't look at in detail for the purposes of this research where they look at effectively safe access zones that have been created through other means so other than legislation so sometimes in the US they're created by injunction or by like local council kind of ordinances and there have been more challenges in regards to those and I think some of those might have been successful but I haven't looked at those for this so I won't comment on that so yes there is an example of a safe access zone being struck down in the US. In terms of convictions yes within England and Wales there have been some arrests investigations and attempts at prosecution with regards to the protection the space protection orders and so there's some examples of that in Northern Ireland there's also been reports I think I linked to a BBC news article about continued protests in an area and the police being involved in those. You sometimes see particularly with regards to the PSPOs that we've got at the moment in England and Wales that charges get dropped so someone might get arrested there might be an investigation process but that doesn't often get through all the way to conviction. Some of the legislation just kind of thinking off the top of my head talk about giving like setting out warnings first so going down the kind of arrest route isn't always the first port of call some of the legislation requires either kind of a warning or removal from the zone at kind of first instance then there might be kind of an arrest or investigation so yes there definitely is examples of that happening and when you read some of the sort of reports around this some people will say well that's evidence of it not working and some people will say no that's actually that's evidence of it working because you're arresting and prosecuting them. That's fine I suppose the area and it would be too early to say is how those charges if and when they're brought progress in terms of giving some clarity on what behaviours are or are not acceptable or fall within the legislation but I suppose it's too early to understand that. The other point I was going to raise was just following up on this discussion about the UK legislation so I've understand it correctly the zones the abortion zones within that legislation are couched in terms of broader zones within other protest activities is that correct so for example people protesting outside workplaces because they're not happy about what's manufactured there or outside other facilities because they're not happy about something else that's happening in a specific area or other forms of political protest is that how it's framed in the UK legislation? I think Mayor I didn't explain it super well. The Public Order Act 2023 which is in England and Wales is the piece of legislation that's kind of been in the news as being controversial for creating new criminal offences for protester things like locking on to things and stuff like that so that legislation doesn't create safe access zones in any other context it just creates other restrictions on protests through other means sorry I probably didn't understand that. No that's fine and that legislation clearly if I'm understanding that right makes a difference between those other protests and the abortion zone legislation in a way that's quite clear in the legislation. Yeah yeah section 9 is singled out as being abortion safe access so thank you. Thanks and Santish Gohani. Thank you convener I just declare my interests as a practicing NHS GP. Thank you I'm not getting an indication oh Ross. Thanks convener just very briefly I'm interested in excuse me in any of the examples you came across how the legislation ordinance engaged with right to private property one of the hypotheticals that we're looking at is where private residences would come within the zone and hypothetically somebody has a house with a garden with a flagpole they can put a flag up on that flagpole there's any question of you under this legislation there's questions around intent the messaging on the flag etc are there any examples of other bits of legislation where there's been a very clear interaction with private property rights and and that has been resolved? Not as far as I'm aware I do recall reading about situations where there are like churches within a kind of zone area on what behaviour can happen there so you know could you display a sign like outside the church that kind of thing and some of the legislation I've seen makes an exemption for things that happen like within a church I think there was an exemption for things that happen in some places like within buildings including often within the medical facility itself is usually exempted but I haven't come across so much a situation where an individual's property is kind of within the zone and then what are they allowed to do within that private property and perhaps that has just been because the nature of the zones and where those clinics are that hasn't been a problem I guess it depends on the standalone clinics where they tend to be versus I think more likely that hospitals might be more of an issue did that answer your question I didn't know if you're talking about protecting the private property or just where that impacts on the yeah it's a bit where it impacts exactly the example you gave the your church can put a sign outside just as much as somebody could put a sign in their window you know at election time it's not uncommon for people to put signs in their windows saying which party they're voting for but in this case if your house is within the zone there's an interesting interaction there between the intent of this legislation and ECHR A1P1 rights oh yeah for sure and I suppose that that connects back then to the size of the zones as well so one of the advantages that some people who don't agree with kind of a safe access zone legislation but might prefer the kind of case-by-case basis PSPO approach where you create a zone for a particular clinic um they do mention things like well you can target that zone for that specific area so you could potentially frame it so that you weren't catching people's property or you weren't catching churches but obviously with the England and Welsh um legislation which is just 150 meters every single clinic I think you've probably got a higher risk of that happening thank you thanks community sondish gohani thanks again just pick up on on that point um so from what you said I don't know if it works yes so I'm just trying to ask him is this the only legislation that has specific mention of private dwellings in it or do they all have them testing my brain power to remember I don't think it's not very I don't think it's very common for it to mention anything like that the only the context in which private dwellings come up more frequently is in like the canadian um and us legislation where they're talking about actually protecting those areas so the homes and residences of like clinic staff and clinic doctors where they had incidents of violence I haven't and it's interesting you bring it up because it really hasn't kind of been on my radar or something um which is making me think that I haven't really seen it in the legislation okay um can I ask if you could maybe write to us if it indeed if it isn't others um maybe just write to us to to let us know yes to write to you to check that go back and check the legislation and make sure that it private dwellings aren't mentioned yeah yeah thank you just to just a quick question Emily about the the nature of the different protected sites in each of the the legislation obviously in England and Wales it's very much more a standalone clinic basis than it is here in in Scotland where we're looking at more hospital campuses and and the nature of of those sites is that a consistent theme across the other legislation as well that actually the sites in Scotland that we're trying to protect are kind of unique compared to many of the other sites that are covered in other legislation around the world um so not completely unique I think the Isle of Man um they tend to happen in hospitals and there's also somewhere else I have to check because now my brain has given up but there's definitely somewhere else so I remember reading specifically as a note that unusually it said um abortions tend to take place in a hospital rather than clinic setting so no Scotland isn't unique completely unique there are some other examples I just unusual yeah just unusual often they do take place in standalone clinics and interestingly actually some of the research talks about how that attracts protest if it's a standalone clinic um but obviously hospitals are experiencing that as well so I'll double check that that's lovely thank you lovely um can I thank you uh Emily for um your research and also for your attendance at committee this morning um and I will now suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses welcome back and the next item on our agenda is our first evidence session on the abortion services safe access zones Scotland bill before I begin I would will provide a brief introduction to the session the evidence we will hear today will be in relation to the proposed establishment of safe access zones and we'll be hearing from individuals with lived experience as part of that as such some of the content of this meeting may be sensitive or potentially distressing and the committee encourages anyone affected by these issues discussed today to seek support if anyone attending today needs to take a break during the session please indicate this to myself or the clerks and I welcome to the meeting Alice Murray Lily Roberts Lucy Greaves co-founder of back off Scotland Rachel Clark chief staff British pregnancy advisory service and dr Rebecca Mason research and policy league the young women's movement thank you all for coming along today to give evidence to the meeting I know that some of you are sharing personal experiences with committee today in relation to the bill and we really appreciate you joining us to help inform the committee's scrutiny of the bill please note there's no pressure or expectation to share anything that you're not comfortable with today and again please let us know if you would like to take a break at any point and I understand that Alice and Lily will begin by setting out their views on the proposed establishment of safe access zones and how this relates to their experiences and I'll ask I'll invite Alice to speak first thank you so it's great to be here today and thank you for inviting me I think we're all pretty glad that it's got to this stage I know that everyone has my experience handed out but I think I'll just give a little brief summary my own words just to start so I found out it was pregnant in 2019 which was my third year of university at the University of Edinburgh and before that time I was aware that the protesters existed I'd kind of seen their presence before outside charmers clinic and always felt very frustrated but then when I went to get an abortion it was it was a different experience it was a different experience to seeing them on the street which I think can be quite angry and dressing to then actually facing them when you're you know going to seek medical care it's really you know it's not something that you expect I think in this country so when I went to charmers clinic there was around five to seven protesters I went to the clinic alone I made that choice and so they were kind of you know they were the only people that I saw out with the healthcare workers inside who were absolutely brilliant this protesters for me were standing on the other side of the street so I guess in many ways it's a weird way to say I feel lucky there's no lucky experience but I think you know some of the the testimonies that you'll hear over the course of this maybe seem a little bit more shocking than mine but even at that you know the long-term impacts of facing the protesters for me have been really significant it's definitely really impacted the way that I could process my experience and think about my experience I know that everyone will have questions I guess the only thing that I would want to kind of raise at this point is that everyone's experience of abortion is very different and I think for me one thing that I really like to get across is that I had no emotional kind of attachment or regret or issues around my decision to get an abortion it was a very easy decision for me I didn't really think too much about it because I really saw it as a healthcare procedure that I needed to get but even at that the experience was you know traumatising and that hand on heart was only to do with the protesters and I think it's very easy for people to think that well you know an abortion is never going to be a pleasant experience it's always going to be traumatising so you know that's kind of just wrapped up in the experience and it's absolutely untrue in my opinion you know I know for a fact that if the protesters were not there that experience would have been you know the equivalent of getting a tooth out for me it was very not a big deal but the protesters made it a very politicised and stressful experience so that's just one thing that I'd like you to take into account when I talk about my experience but yeah that's why obviously I support the safe access zones as well because I think we need people to be able to access healthcare without the intimidation that I faced. Thank you Alice Welley. Hi yeah um so just to go off kind of what Alice said we I had my abortion in 2018 when I just moved to Glasgow uni and I went to Queen Elizabeth University hospital and that hospital is the one which has had the biggest protests on record so there were 200 people there at one point and I think given when I went there were 15 to 20 people and the way in which Queen Elizabeth Hospital is considered geography of it there's a small ring road that you have to go around and there's a small section of road which you can't avoid when you're going in and out of the clinic and so I went in with my partner at the time and it was completely unavoidable and this group of people was a very you simply couldn't avoid it and it was very intimidating and they were holding up placars and I'd had no I'd always been pro choice but I had no concept of the fact that protests happened in the UK I kind of thought it was a very American occurrence so coming over here and then being very suddenly confronted with this reality which I'm sure happens for a lot of other people accessing services too with something which played on my mind and similarly to Alice's experience in terms of me processing the actual abortion the thing that played on my mind afterwards was solely the protestors being there and I was in there for quite a while I was in hospital for about seven hours went in at 7am and they were all there I spent the entire time being rather than thinking about and being present in the moment I spent the entire time thinking about how I was going to get out there was an element of feeling trapped and an element of feeling very overwhelmed by their presence and beyond that when I was in there my partner at the time had gone outside for some fresh air and was approached by one of these people so when they're saying that they're standing there they're not doing anything invasive it's very far from the truth as the other accounts will also have you know and they went up and they handed him leaflets containing misinformation about healthcare and I think it's really important to understand that these people aren't these protests aren't neutral they aren't peaceful there's something very dangerous and malicious about handing out information in that manner and they would say that they're not aggressive acts so it's not an act of violence to occupy occupy space like that but when you are gathering and you're distributing misinformation like that it's frankly really scary and buffer zones if they've been in place when I had my experience would have made me feel really safe and I think safety when you're accessing healthcare isn't much to ask for so it's a shame we're at this point but I'm really excited to be here to speak with you and hopefully push through legislation to which has a most person-centered approach and makes sure healthcare is accessible and safe and approachable for people in this context. Thank you Lily and thank you again Alice for coming along this morning. We'll now move to questions for the whole panel and I'm going to go firstly to Sandish Gohani. Thank you, thank you convener. Thank you so much for telling us about your your stories and what happened and I just want to start with the definition of interest as a practicing NHS GP. Can I ask, it's a very hypothetical question if you can't answer it then absolutely don't answer. The protests that you faced were very much things happening and you were approached Lily as well or not sorry your partner at the time was. What impact would silent prayers and vigils have had upon you or potentially because obviously that didn't actually happen? Sorry just to note that that was my experience yeah so no one kind of directly approached me so when I went to my clinic and sorry but I wasn't clear on this it was at Chalmers clinic in Edinburgh you're probably familiar with it and so I went in to one end and they were on the other side of the street there was around five to seven of them and they were engaging in silent prayer and I mean I think we also need to note that when they say silent prayer sometimes it's silent sometimes they are singing hymns and they also have signs which I mean now we're getting a little technical but yeah it's silent prayer but you're holding a sign that says you know abortion is murder so you're giving out a message and so that was my experience so I don't really need to think about it hypothetically that was my experience is the what the protesters say silent prayer is why I experienced and I can only speak to my own experience but I know that it was all the same you know it was all the more traumatising to walk into a clinic and have people outside suggest that what you're doing is wrong and to question your decision is you know it's horrible it's really really kind of emotionally draining and so yeah I think it's just the same and I think you know we really need to encompass a variety of actions into this because I think what one person's idea of silent prayer is when they're engaging it I think can look very different to the person on the other side who is you know alone in access and healthcare and so yeah that that was my experience was silent prayer thank you that that's very helpful and can I just open up to to other members of the panel the legislation before us talks I does have a part of it which talks about private dwellings and within the private dwellings putting up posters signs within your your private dwelling and if you if you look at the reasons why that's happening you can fully understand the reason so my question to to all of the panel do you think that's proportionate to to have that and do you feel that that versus the right to do almost what you want in your your own property is something that's been being balanced appropriately hi I'm Rachel Clark I am from B pass for those of you that aren't aware we are the largest abortion provider in the UK we're a charitable abortion provider we have clinics across England and Wales we were also very heavily involved in the passing of the English and Welsh law in Westminster last year and this was actually a question that came up quite a lot with the bill team at the time what I can say is that we were very clear that there needed to be some provision for private dwellings and other buildings within buffer zones and the reason for that is that absolutely none of us I think I can speak for everyone none of us believe that if you're having a private conversation in your own house that that should be covered none of us believe that that should be stopped however you can use your private dwelling or another or another building or something that you own in order to have exactly the same effect as if those people were stood on a public highway our particular concern was around the posting of very large posters in the window with very distressing images it was around people stood in gardens handing leaflets out over a garden wall where essentially women were having to walk past them so for us where we landed with the law in England was that it doesn't cover private conversations within a house or between houses but it does cover anything that is aimed at women who are in the public space and for us that really balance the rights to ensure that people can do what they want in their home but they can't inflict it upon people in a buffer zone. If anyone else would like to come in or are you all agreed? Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask an officer I've heard already from Alison from Lily about their support of bringing in this legislation and introducing buffer zones but maybe to the other panel members what would you expect would be the impact of this legislation where it to be enacted, where it to be passed? Lucy? Hi everybody my name is Lucy Grieve I'm co-founder of Back Off Scotland for those of you that don't know what Back Off Scotland is it's a grass roots campaign that's looking to secure the implementation of safe access zones around all clinics and medical facilities providing abortion in Scotland. When we started in 2020 with our founding members here Alice and Lily and myself we heard a lot of stories about similar experiences to Lily and Alice but as the campaign started to grow as we started to get a little bit more press attention we started receiving testimonies and collecting testimonies from hundreds of women right across Scotland and the impact that it has on honestly the whole cross section of society is very surprising. I think it's very easy to think well if we have a if we have I don't know some if we have this implemented you know it's going to help abortion patients and that's great because one in three women will have an abortion in their life and it's you know one of the most common procedures that a woman will go under but if you look at how it affects other people so for example we've collected testimonies from women who are undergoing miscarriage management women that have had sort of much longed for pregnancies sexual assault victims accessing services partners of those accessing care refugees even and they've all been harassed and intimidated at the hands of a variety of methods of harassment and I think something that's very important to us is the fact that you know when you bring it down to the the sort of the base level and you look at things like silent prayer for example it doesn't matter if it's silent or if it's you know in your face the actual presence of somebody there targeting you for going for a medical procedure making a judgment about you is unacceptable and I think the impact that this would have on the whole of society will actually be extremely beneficial and I think it balances the rights well given that no one will be on either side of the coin so whether you're your pro choice or your anti choice you just cannot protest and behave like this within a designated zone. Thanks very much for those who don't know I'm from the young women's movement and the young women's movement is Scotland's national organisation for young women's feminist leadership and collective action against gender inequality and our work is led by young women and it's for young women so to ensure that young women's voices are centred in this conversation we engaged with our advisory collective which is a group of 31 women under 30 and we met with them to discuss their views of the proposal of access on bills and we as a movement we support the bill because we believe that people who access or provide abortion and associated sexual and reproductive health care services should be able to do so free from intimidation and harassment and as we noted in our status of young women in Scotland report last year on accessing health care which engaged with nearly a thousand young women across different parts of Scotland young women face substantial obstacles when they're accessing sexual and reproductive health care in Scotland and this includes contraception abortion and post-abortion services and we as a movement believe that all women should have the right to access safe high quality and timely health care without fear of being dismissed or ignored by health care staff or verbally abused by protesters outside health care facilities and since the publication of our report last year we've continued to work very closely with young women to better understand how they can have a more positive experience when they're accessing health care in their local communities and at the young women's movement we believe that compassion care and concern should be embedded in all health care settings and strategies and that this should start from the initial point of contact when a person is walking through the entrance of a hospital or health care facility young women told us that even quiet protest outside of a facility can be very intimidating for them and the distribution of leaflets but the ronious information can't be detrimental for young women's health and safety so we believe that the bill will ensure that every person that's entering a clinic or hospital for whatever reason that is personal to them and their health care provider is protected from experience and intimidation and harassment from protesters gathering outside the entrance and I'll just finish on this point that I think it's really important to get put forward now we believe that the bill doesn't seek to stop or ban anti-choice protests or activity and this was something that the young women that we engage with were really passionate about the majority of the women that we spoke to about this bill agreed that the safe access zone should apply to both pro and anti-choice protests one young woman said and I quote it is an equal bill which would prioritise the peaceful experience of a young woman seeking access to health care so we believe is an organisation that this is a really far away of policing quite a difficult and contentious issue we don't think it's the bill is an attempt to restrict freedom of expression religion or protest but it's to safeguard public health and protect the right of women to access abortion and associate reproductive health care without obstruction thanks I'm now going to move to rose creep thanks convener the opponents of this bill those who engage in or support these protests are going to come and give evidence to parliament with the same arguments that you'll be familiar with one of which is that in part they don't see this as a protest they see this as an opportunity to offer advice offer an alternative perspective to those who are seeking abortion seeking reproductive health care I think it's really important that you have the opportunity to answer that claim from them directly so i've been interested in your thoughts on on that claim that what they're doing is offering advice and other options that that wouldn't otherwise be provided and will you address that somewhat in your opening remarks that what they were providing was was misinformation which is of no surprise whatsoever but I've been interested in in the panel's thoughts on that and what your response would be to that claim I think just to speak to my own experience anyway for that which i think is important is and again I don't I'm not actually 100 familiar with current best practice and I'm sure Rachel unless you'll both have a better idea but for me and my experience when I went to the clinic I had you know a huge opportunity to learn about other options and to discuss this actually at the time I was it was one of the things that I took away from it I remember saying to a friend that I was really surprised by how long and extended that conversation was you know we went through why I wanted to have an abortion you know if I was in a safe situation if I had a partner and all you know a variety of safeguarding questions and I actually found myself kind of saying like no I really want this I really want this and yeah I was really surprised about how much that is and I think that's you know that is my response to that is that that is the appropriate place for that to happen and I also think there's something to be said for if protesters adamantly think that that conversation doesn't go on inside and that healthcare workers are not doing their job to give a full rounded view of abortion to patients they need to protest that they should you know they should fight to get that into NHS practice I don't believe that it's needed but if that is an actual concern and I just in my opinion I don't think it's a genuine concern of protesters I think they know that that happens inside because that's not their focus but also on the flip side of that another kind of glaring issue is that a lot of the information they do give out is either you know factually or medically incorrect and we can't check we can't check the validity of it we've heard from people who you know have maybe been given a leaflet that had medical misinformation now that's really hard for us to track you know once that protester is gone and that leaflet's given out we don't know who's seen that we don't know if it's children etc but yeah to summarise in my experience I think that conversation happens inside and I think it's entirely inappropriate to happen at the clinic door thank you yeah so uh as a provider I can I can speak to what happens in our in our clinics and I will preface this with we don't provide in Scotland but we provide and Scottish providers provide in line with best practice both international and national uh arcog the royal college of obstetricians and gynaecologists are very clear that counselling should be available to women within healthcare services if they require it they're also very clear that if women don't require it they should not be forced to go through that because ultimately women do come to the service and a very large number of women come to the service knowing that this is the decision that they want to make they've had that conversation with their friends with their family and ultimately they don't need to sit in front of a healthcare professional justifying again and again why it is they need that care I think what I would say is this is this is an obviously a message that is used against against us in England as well regulation I think is hugely important on this that as providers we are both qualified to provide that care and highly regulated as healthcare professionals that is not something that a random person on the street is ultimately we as a healthcare provider cannot know who those people are as far as we are aware they are not trained they are not qualified and they are not regulated to provide the quite detailed and quite specialist care that women in really difficult circumstances presenting to abortion services may need and so for us ultimately if this isn't about protest I think actually they're doing themselves a disservice when it comes to freedom of speech because what they're essentially asking is to have free access to women who are in a very vulnerable state and to offer them healthcare services for which they are not qualified or regulated to provide thank you well over you can come in on that point as well so yeah I was just gonna add in briefly on what Alice said that I I mean I can't speak for everyone but I also had very comprehensive options given to me it's not a case if you walk into a clinic and you're instantly just granted an abortion that's not how it goes down you have with the legal system and how you access it you have to have I had two appointments and both those appointments I had about 30 minute conversations with healthcare professionals you have to get the approval of two doctors it's not like it instantly happens and I think when anti-choice individuals claim that they're offering advice it's very much hinged on this idea of kind of saviorship and they're framing themselves as these you know providers of care they can help you come back from you know making a bad decision and in reality as Rachel said it's incredibly dangerous what they're doing and if anything I think it's very misguided and it's very naive and rather disrespectful to a healthcare system which is regulated and which is set out to protect and provide protect people's safety and provide accessible healthcare thank you Rachel interested in your perspective from being a service provider down south of us in a later session we'll be taking evidence from providers up here to get the perspective of staff but one of the elements that we need to consider for this bill obviously is the impact of the protests on other people accessing healthcare services in the same setting but also on staff in those settings and since we've got you here at the moment and you are a provider elsewhere be interested in B passes not just your perspective but your experience of the impact on your staff of equivalent protests and vigils down south yeah absolutely so I think I'll start by saying that the groups that protest up here are also the groups that protest in England they are the same people using the same guidelines supported by the same american backed organisations we as a provider have spent a lot of time gathering evidence first hand both from women who attend our clinics and from staff that provide care we've got about 3 000 accounts from women and several hundred from staff of their experiences I think they vary by the kind of protest that they are and that very much depends on area but I think the most difficult thing for our staff and our clinics is when a new protest pops up it is very difficult for me to be able to turn to them and say this is what's going to be involved because they vary so so wildly that ultimately you're never going to know what to forewarn women about or staff about until they've turned upon your doorstep and in the meantime the women that are coming through the door are highly distressed they need additional care the people that are providing care for them are obviously then put under time pressure because they're not just providing that healthcare they're essentially providing a the kind of counselling service that we've been talking about with the experiences so you've got women who are coming in who are crying who are who are worried that some of the disinformation they've been given outside may be correct um I think also you have staff who feel and I think this actually comes back to the question about silent prayer it's not so much the prayer issue it's the presence issue and it's prolonged presence and it's presence that focuses on the entrance to the clinics so I think most of our staff would say they know who I am they know that I'm an abortion provider and they know that I'm here to help women that has resulted in some pretty nasty altercations between our staff and the people outside it's also resulted in some of our staff expressing fear when they're walking to their cars at night when they're having to walk past them I've got reports of them being chased down the street in the dark we have recently had one where um someone was followed to her car and then the next day it was keyed there's no proof of who that was but I think it's quite suspicious if I'm going to put it like that that that's been what's happening in that area uh so yeah I think the impact on staff actually it grinds them down because I think they become quite used to it and yured to it because they've been there for so long and it happens day in day out but when you really begin to dig down with them actually the impact on them is really severe and it really does affect how they feel about their ability to do their job thank you is anybody else like to come in on this question of the the impact on other people in the facilities while that's those who are accessing the facility for reasons other than reproductive healthcare other hospital patients for example yeah definitely so I think one thing that we were really interested was about was when staff members started coming forward to us as well as people that were accessing services for different reasons so for example we heard from a staff member who worked in the neonatal intensive unit at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital and she she hadn't had an experience of abortion herself but she was so frustrated and angry about the fact that her patients and the parents of these of these babies in the neonatal intensive care unit had to go through that and the effect that it had and a lot of times partners get very angry as well and it's almost as if there's it's sort of I worry about what actually happens when like someone's set over the edge I think there's really a big impact on people that we don't really maybe necessarily think that but then also we heard from a junior doctor at Queen Elizabeth as well and she'd had an abortion while she was at medical school in Edinburgh and she spoke very courageously I thought about how coming to work every day at the Queen Elizabeth actually meant that she would have to pass the protesters in the morning and then again at night and it would affect how she provided care to her patients throughout the day and sometimes she'd go home and cry and I just thought that was an extremely powerful account of how much this affects everybody and along with that as well we have testimonies like I said earlier from refugees really at extremely vulnerable points in their lives and you know I think I think you can imagine the impact that would have on somebody if they were to you know be in some of the worst times of their life and have to pass through that and know that people were there to target them because you know the signs of pictures on them it's it's very clear what they're there to do. Thank you very much. Thank you convener. Thank you Emma Harper. Thank you for coming today. The bill talks about protected premises and there's a definition of protected premises in the bill and part of the bill also has commitments for future proofing aspects of the bill such as the potential for the scope to extend in the future because persons who are providing support might be GP practices, pharmacies, other areas as well so be interested to hear on the on your thoughts around the definition of protected premises and the ability to modify that in the future. I don't know if Rachel maybe wants to come in on that one. So I think for those of you who may or may not be aware there's been quite a revolution in the provision of abortion care in recent years particularly in relation to the administration and the use of early medical abortion and early medical abortion at home. So in Scotland that's now available up to 12 weeks it involves taking two sets of medication at home which prior to 20 I've got to get this right now 2018 actually were both required to be taken in a clinic and what we've seen quite rapidly is a change to the way in which women can engage with care in a way that perhaps we didn't see when that drug was first licensed in the early 90s and certainly did not see in 1967 when the law was passed and I think what we have seen is that the where we have legislation that limits how particularly authorities and ministers can act in relation to updates in best practice updates in health care that those limitations really do impact on women. So I think for us in some ways it is possible to see where that might develop as you mentioned in terms of GPs but I also would quite like us to think bigger I think that just because of the way we provide abortion now is out of hospitals and out of standalone clinics like Chalmers and Sandofford that doesn't mean that in 20 years when we almost certainly will still need safe access zones that those are not going to be needed around new sites. So I think for us it is quite essential that that power is in there for ministers to enable them to reflect on what current best practices is and make sure that women are protected no matter how that changes. Thank you for that. I'm thinking about zones wherever they be in the future. The proposal is for 200 metres in Scotland which is different than the UK legislation of 150 but just in reading our briefing papers 150 metres seems to be adequate except for the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Glasgow where there's a part of it that means that people could potentially gather and can be heard from the wards that are providing healthcare for women. So what are your thoughts about the 200 metres in Scotland as a proposal and then the potential to flexibly allow ministers to extend or reduce those zones? I can speak to that and I'm sure Lucy will have something to say as well. I think B pass focus very tightly in England on 150 metres for the clear reason that for us in England the vast majority of our clinics are standalone or they're part of GP surgeries. They're on a much smaller scale compared to hospitals and the mix of women that we have coming is very different so they tend to be dedicated clinics rather than broad sort of based hospitals where you've got miscarriage neonatal units those kind of things. So I think for us our concern around distance was never about the distance itself but about the impact that that had on women and the key things that we were always concerned with was line of sight so whether women could be watched and be observed and potentially be filmed when they were entering clinics and also whether they could essentially identify women when they were walking past them so that they could see them come in or out of a clinic and then catch them when they reach the edge of the buffer zone. For us 150 metres solves that in almost every part of the country so that is why we chose that distance. It wasn't specifically because we think 150 metres was adequate and I think Lucy's got some really good reasons as to why that is inadequate in Glasgow. I think for us 200 metres in Scotland does make the most sense particularly because of that sight in Glasgow. We do also support the ability to extend that where necessary. I think it's right that that sits with the Minister because that means that there has to be a decision based on evidence as to whether that's required or not. We do have some concerns about the ability of the Minister which at the moment in the wording of the of the bill seems quite unfettered to reduce the size of a safe access zone as much as they want without any consultation. Our position is that 200 if you're going to have 200 metres as a safe access zone nationally that should be the minimum to which they can be reduced so the Minister could increase it to 300 and then decide that actually 200 was fine and do that. They shouldn't in our opinion be able to reduce them below 200 because at that point we lose the value of having that national legislation and the ability of women to understand what it is that they're walking into and where they're protected and I think also we would want to make sure that the ability to reduce the area is subject to the same requirements as the increase in area so looking at the evidence consulting with providers consulting with the business owners. So in the reduction part of the bill section 8 in front of me it would use require a further consultation on that rather than just ministers making a decision is that something that you know any alteration of a zone to 200 would be the lowest number but if it would require ministers to do further consultation to make sure that evidence informed any changes to reduction for instance of a zone. Yes that is what we'd want and the simple reason for that is we have been in quite a different position in Westminster than you are in Holyrood where for instance our abortion minister at the moment is a former vice chair of the pro life or party parliamentary group. We have a very different set of ministers and our concern has always been about making sure that what we have in statute protects women and that ministers can make those alterations but they have to make them in conjunction with the people that are providing the service and ensuring that they are not simply able to do whatever it is they want because of their own personal feelings about abortion. I really wish that that wasn't the case and this was treated as healthcare but ultimately currently abortion is still a relatively political issue and I would want to ensure that women in the future are protected against any potential changes to ministerial opinion that might mean that there was a desire to reduce the protection that we want to give them today. Okay thanks thank you thanks convener. Thank you. Thank you very much convener and good morning panel. Thanks very much for coming along and sharing your thoughts with us this morning. The area that I wanted to focus on was around about the aspects of the bill that create criminal offences and specifically the approach which is to prohibit behaviours rather than specific activities. I'd just like to get your perspective on that in your sense of how that would work in any concerns you have or any reasons you think that that is the right approach and also related to that those sections of the bill also provide for penalties for those breaching the legislation and I'd like to get your perspective on that as well so I'll just open it up if anyone wants to come in on either of those aspects. Rachel, thank you. I'm very sorry. This is actually a conversation that we had at length at Westminster. The original iteration of our amendment had a specific list of activities that were involved and it was after quite a prolonged length of discussion within the House of Lords that we concluded that ultimately there was probably more value in having that list of the three things of the impact of behaviour rather than including specific behaviours. Part of the reason for that was that the Supreme Court has obviously ruled on the Northern Ireland legislation with regards to those protections so our choice was to copy those pretty much as they were which is what's happened in this bill. I think we support that because there is an element of having that judicial support there already. I think also ultimately one of the things that we were trying to do was kind of pin down every aspect of that harassment in a way that it's not always possible to keep up. It was very much like playing whack-a-mole in all honesty that you would see one thing happen somewhere and you'd think oh that needs to go in the bill and then you'd see it somewhere else, you'd see something else and what we didn't want to do was create something where the legislation was always trying to catch up and the anti-abortion groups always sort of had an edge on us because they just needed to act outside the outside the copy of the legislation so I think for us the impact is the right way to go and I think what we can see is that it is working within Northern Ireland and when the Home Office decides to introduce it in England I'm quite confident it will be working there too. Alice? Yeah just to to add on to that I think and not to repeat myself from what was discussed earlier but I think it's an important point here that you know I think it needs to be this way because for example my experience would come under this but I think if we were to kind of list exact behaviours in that way I think it's much harder to track kind of what protesters are doing and I think it comes back to the protesters who will you know ultimately say well they were just engaged in silent prayer and they weren't you know directly harassing anyone I think from my testimony and a few others that we've collected you know the impact is really the same. Okay thank you. I'm very sorry I realised that you asked at the end of your question about punishment. Yes. I think this once again comes back to the Supreme Court conclusion on Northern Ireland which was that the use of fines was adequate in those situations we did actually start out with optional prison sentences we reduced those so in some ways whether or not I think that would be the appropriate punishments a little bit irrelevant because I think essentially it would put Scotland out on a bit of a limb to be including prison sentences in a bill that isn't currently in place in Northern Ireland or in England and Wales and I believe I'm right in saying or in the proposed legislation in Ireland either. Very helpful clarification. Thank you. Just one other thing to asking and may or may not want to give any details on this but talking about behaviours and impact one of the things that's been mentioned a number of times this morning is inaccurate medical information being given out I don't know if you've got any examples of that that you'd want to want to share or not. Absolutely so for us I think there is there's one key leaflet that seems to make its way around pretty much the whole country it includes line drawings the fetus is growing it also includes a poem that starts with dear mum please don't do anything to harm your baby today there's a list on that leaflet which includes a large number of inaccurate medical information that would start with the fact that the the erroneous fact that abortion causes breast cancer that's something that is specifically called out within the nice guidance and within arcog's guidance is not being true it talks about the mental health impact on women which is once again disproved in the nice guidance in the arcog guidance they claim that abortion leads to child abuse and suicidal ideation neither of which are evidenced they have no real sourcing of that information and where that information is sourced it does tend to be from rather fringe journals from with a particular kind of bent usually from America so I think ultimately those are the kind of things that we see and those are very familiar messages for anyone that is around anti-abortion groups the sort of the breast cancer and the impact on women's mental health. Thanks convener I just you mentioned America Rachel and I forgot to mention that I was a registered perioperative nurse for 30 years and I worked in California and England as well as Scotland as well and you know I'm just thinking about the activities in in the states you know there's a lot of violence has been perpetrated over the years and real serious intimidation of persons working in in health care as well so it's whether it's at GP's homes or doctors or nurse's staff or all of that so my point is basically that you know when we're speaking about persons that are encountering protests you've talked earlier about staff as well and that so that's I guess the overarching aspects of the bill will protect everybody who is going to their work or going to access health care is that that's what we're aiming for is that correct? Sorry can I just yeah yeah I would say that something that came through with our consultation with young women as well many of the young women that we spoke to didn't disclose if they had a personal experience but many of them do work as staff in NHS hospitals and health care clinics and they said that they felt incredibly you know attacked every morning that they were going into their job and they were experiencing these sorts of protests so we think it's really important that the bill is going to not only protect women accessing these services but protect everyone especially in Glasgow such as the Queen Elizabeth hospital which is you know hospital that is serving the entire community it's not solely for an abortion clinic so we would say that from our perspective it's really important to remember that the bill isn't specifically just for women accessing abortion it's for everyone to be to work free from intimidation or harassment as well thank you convener certainly some of the things that have been said and I just want to say that as a GP when a woman comes to me asking for abortion it's not just yes move on there's a conversation to be had because it's about safeguarding with with what you're saying and people can conscientiously object but they have to pass that patient on to somebody who can have that conversation and I think that is quite important and and if we I want to talk about human rights and I'm going to ask some really difficult questions which potentially could be quite triggering but there are a group of people as in in our country and especially in America who feel that human rights begins at fertilisation and that's that the embryo is a human with rights and essentially what what is occurring is murder and when you have somebody who has got a view so strong so set to use a word like that they want to be heard they want their their human rights and the human rights of the the fetus the embryo whatever term you want to give up we want to give it they want to give it to be heard so can I ask for your opinion about what I've just said and what you would say in response yes so I think one thing to be very clear about is throughout this entire process it's never been about abortion and about what people think about it or the morality it's always been about access to care so whatever somebody thinks about abortion they're absolutely free to feel that way and we would never want to change somebody's somebody's mind on it that's you know so set in their way we wouldn't want you know to to have somebody feel as though we were trying to you know make everybody pro-choice but I think having a view like that it doesn't make sense to me why you'd be going directly to the woman targeting them and I'd also say along with that if if they want to change the law they can come to Parliament and also I think just because they have a you know a right to freedom of speech a right to freedom of assembly you know whatever they don't have a right to an audience they don't have a right to have you know people listening to what they have to say and particularly not you know vulnerable women that are actually trying to uphold their own rights you know like medical privacy right right to a personal life and I really feel like that's something that when we're asking getting asked questions about human rights it's very very much sort of the questions always revolve around what about the rights of the protesters what about the rights of the people attending these vigils but actually the rights of the women who are being targeted are very often sort of left as a last thought. Does anyone else have thoughts? Sorry yeah I obviously agree with Lucy I think you know we're still going to see anti-choice or anti-abortion protests in this country and that's okay you know they usually do one every year on Lothian road I live in Glasgow there's often protests on Buchanan street that will still happen like this this bill is not trying to get rid of that and also you know they're huge online presence and I think as Lucy said this issue it's not about the morality of abortion and you know we're not here to have that conversation we're here to talk about the exact procedure at the clinic door which is why you know it's called a safe access zone so I think it's really balanced in my opinion. Thank you and I want to ask sort of slightly off topic if I may in Alabama we've seen new legislation coming in on what constitutes a human and that's obviously going to make a huge difference to IVF treatment over there. Do you think that that's a huge difference that's happened in Alabama? Things obviously change opinions change people change our thinking changes as time goes on. Do you think this legislation is going to give us some future safeguards on things like that that have happened? I think first of all I just want to say in case anyone probably couldn't guess that I think what has happened in Alabama and what has happened across much of the US is a travesty for human rights for women's rights and for their ability to live their lives as the free human beings that they are. I think that what we have seen has been disgusting quite frankly and I cannot ever countenance the idea that any of us in this room or beyond would allow something similar to happen in this country. I can't because I think it is so far beyond what the British public believe in what the Scottish public believe in. I think what we can see is that this law will be in place for as long as the Scottish Parliament wants it. Ultimately the Scottish Parliament has the ability at any point to overturn it if at some point God forbid that they decided that ultimately the human beings are human beings from the moment of fertilisation they could get rid of this law but my feeling is that that isn't going to happen and what is required is future proof legislation that enables us to maintain this protection for as long as we need it and unfortunately our experience is that these kind of protests although they got much bigger and much more organised in about 2014 have been going on since the abortion act passed. I've got no reason to believe that without this law passing that these would stop of their own accord or that they're an issue for this time. They are something that has been used over many many decades to induce fear in women who are trying to seek to exercise their fundamental legal rights. My question was at the moment obviously that there is no protest that occurs outside of an IVF clinic but given what happened in Alabama I suppose that that does happen do you think bills like this would give us the flexibility to be able to future proof anything that happens in the future or do you think that actually we'd need to maybe come back and relook at it if something happens or? I think from our perspective this is we are not proposing that this is something that is used elsewhere this is a very particular issue it has many many years of evidence it has thousands of bits of information from women and from providers behind it. I am not fundamentally opposed to similar laws elsewhere but the evidence has to be there and I think for us it is very clear that when it comes to abortion clinics the evidence is there. If in future very similar things were happening elsewhere then I would be more than happy to come and talk to the Scottish Parliament about why we needed that protection but I think you're right that at the moment that's not where we are and I wouldn't want those changes to happen without the same kind of scrutiny that the committee is giving to this bill because they are I really recognise I think we all recognise that these do have impacts on human rights of protesters it is simply that those rights have to be balanced with the rights of women and ultimately when it comes to abortion our conclusion is that those are most adequately balanced by the introduction of safe access zones. Thank you. David Torrance. Thank you, convener and good morning to witnesses there's individuals in groups out there who would argue about the right existing criminal offences which deal with behaviours such as harassment and threatening behaviour and view why are these insufficient to deal with protests outside abortion clinics? This is just an experience that I had when I used to live around the corner from Sandiford clinic and just as an example of how I think people being dealt with by existing legislation doesn't quite cover it I went and observed when there were two protesters who frequent that clinic very regularly and these two individuals had megaphones and they were charming hymns and preaching very loudly over these megaphones into the clinic and the police were called they came and from my experience of seeing how police officers dealt with this situation and from speaking to them they felt as if existing legislation there was but there was nothing they could do it's not explicit enough and it's not contextually bound enough to what's happening they took the megaphones off them because that was I wouldn't I wouldn't know the legal jargon but because that would be kind of infringing peace or however it would be phrased but once they took the megaphones off them they started screaming into the clinic and this clinic in particular provides sexual assault and rape counselling and there were people entering the clinic for these reasons and they were screaming into this clinic verbal abuse and so I think it goes back to the complexity of different actions and how you class it and that's why impact is such an important approach to have because existing legislation doesn't really cover that or account for that. Lucy? Totally echo what Lily is saying but I also think one thing to bring into is the stigmatisation of abortion before we started our campaign you know we hadn't really heard many stories you know we looked at what BPAS had done in England and what sister support were done in England as well with their sort of local campaigns around Ealing for Ealing council for example but I actually think that people just didn't talk about this until it became on issue in the media and when certainly when we got sort of people reaching out to us and you know for the hundreds of stories we've collected people never knew what they could do and the last thing that they want to do is go into a abortion clinic and call the police because they're going through a difficult day and the absolute last thing on their mind is you know involving the police you know having to having to go through a process that's going to make the day harder and I really think now that we're talking about it more and there's been more sort of light shed on it and you know people who wouldn't normally see that the gates of a medical facility that provides abortion can see what what these women are having to go for it's really changed the the conversation around it rightly I think and yeah I definitely I definitely think the stigmatisation and maybe the conversations we've been having are I'm not sure just changing the chat. Can I say thank you to all the witnesses can I just ask is there any other issues relating to a bill that the committee haven't covered that you'd like to bring up? Sorry I think one thing for us is there's been changing tactics since we started our campaign from the protesters those that are attending vigils you know first one we started it was very much about it's not legal to to limit the rights of protesters or freedom of speech once the supreme court northern Ireland really came through that really you know changed into all we're here to help and counsel women but actually fundamentally the thing that underpins us all it's nothing to do with you know the women and it's nothing to do with you know fighting for their rights it's all to do with them wanting to ban abortion outright and I think actually when we see how blatant and transparent this is you know messaging on the website of one of these protest groups they say that they want to you know end the scourge of abortion these people aren't you know quiet kind you know people that are just trying to go about their days and help people they are backed by some very I'd say dangerous people that that are really trying to come for our reproductive rights and in particular our right to abortion anybody else thank you thank you thank you can I thank the panel for the evidence this morning you've certainly helped the committee in our scrutiny of this bill our next meeting on the 5th of march will continue to take evidence as part of the committee stage one scrutiny of the abortion services cfaxis on scotland bill and that concludes the public part of our meeting today