 Mor i ni gael i'r 8 o'r Y Llywodraeth, Y Llywodraeth a'r Y Llywodraeth yn 2024. Felly, rydyn ni'n gwleidio i ddysgol i'r ddau'r ddau. Mae'r Cynfiner yn ystod yn ymweld i'r ddau'r ddau i'r ddau, ac yn hynny'n gweithio'r ddau'r ddau. Rydyn ni'n ddau'r ddau'n ddau'r ddau'r ddau. Felly, mae cysylltu cymaint i'r panel iawn o'u rhannu o'r ddiogelion iawn, oedden nhw'n ddangosib ond i'r yw'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor便. Daeth sy'n cyfrifiad Crock-dor, Gilyne McI MSP yn fwyfnod i'r cyfrifiad gyda'i cyfrifiad Crock-dor wychrau'r yn cael gwiaidio'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor I o'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor i'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor i'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor i'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor i'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor i'r cyfrifiad Crock-dor O annually collective committee, substitute by virtue for rule 12.2alpha.2. Our first evidence session is to explore the impact of the bill for those who are against the introduction of safe access zones. Before I begin, I will provide a brief introduction to the session. The evidence that we will hear today will be in relation to the proposed establishment of safe access zones and we will be hearing from individuals with ydwhau am y gwyfnodau i ddalodNote ar hyn o'ch gwyfnod hwn. Mae'n ddod o'r myfyrdd yi'r gwaith, mae'n prasgwrs ar gael iawn i'i nhw i wneud i'n fawr, ac mae'r byw pwyllwch i'r ddweud i gyd yn ddechrau'r bobl yn gyflosio eu ddweud i rhagiau'r ymdwylliannol i'r morngod. Ond, i fod yn cael ei wneud i'r gwaith, mae'r gweithiau'n ei ddyliwch i gael'r ddychrau'r gweithiau. I welcome to the meeting. Margaret Ackers and Bishop Keenan, who will be attending in person, and all others are attending virtually. Alina Dolgegrw, Isabel Von Spruce, and Dr Mark Pickering, chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship, and of course in person we have Bishop John Keenan, vice president of the Bishops Conference of Scotland and the Bishop of Paisley and Margaret Ackers services coordinator for the Society of the Protection of Unborn Children in Scotland. Thank you all for appearing to give evidence to the committee this morning. I know some of you are sharing personal experiences. We really appreciate you joining us to help inform the committee's scrutiny of this bill. Please note that there is no pressure or expectation to share anything that you are not comfortable with today. Again, please let us know if you would like to take a break at any point. I understand that Alina and Isabel will begin by setting out their experiences and views on the proposed establishment of safe access zones, so I would like to invite Alina to address us first of all. Thank you. My name is Alina Dolgegrw. In 2011 I was single, abandoned, facing unemployment and terrified when I discovered I was pregnant. I booked an appointment for an abortion. I just didn't seem to have any other option. My baby wouldn't know her father and her little in the way of financial or emotional support. I wanted to keep her, but I didn't know how, so my hope rapidly began to fade. The day that I turned up to my abortion appointment, a volunteer outside the clinic gently gave me a leaflet. Somewhere beneath the palpable anxiety and pressure, I felt it provide me with exactly what I was longing for. Some will say I already chosen abortion, but the truth is I didn't choose it. The pro-life feature gave me the hope I was searching for. Had I not received the support for volunteers, my beautiful daughter would not have been here today. I waited up the two options I had before me and I chose motherhood. I chose to accept help. It wasn't easy, but with the support of the group who had given me that leaflet, I couldn't be proud of the life my daughter and I have chatted out together. In 2019, at the Court of Appeal, I legally challenged the UK first buffer zone set up by the SPO in England on the grounds of infringes of freedom of expression. That is why I am alarmed at this attempt to introduce safer access zone in Scotland. This will criminalise volunteers outside abortion clinics, such as the one who approached me. No one will deny that visiting an abortion clinic can be distressing, but I didn't feel threatened or harassed by being handed a leaflet. It is worrying that we will consider denying vulnerable women access to this potential life changing information, especially when facing one of the most challenging decisions of their lives that could have lasting ramification on their mental and physical health. Removing the option to receive help to keep a child in case we feel offended is deeply patronising and assumes that women can make a decision for ourselves or that we might choose the wrong option. My case is not one-off. There are hundreds of women, just like me, who have benefited from this support. Yet we are all too often ignored as we mind the single-minded race to encourage uncorchening access to abortion for vulnerable women, or the women who will rather keep their babies than have abortion will be denied valuable assistance in the planet safe access zone. Lord turns everyone who volunteer advice into criminals. Thank you very much, Elina. I would now like to invite Isabelle to address the committee. Thank you. I've been praying near abortion centres, speaking to women or couples there for around 20 years, and I organised a volunteer group in this capacity. With my group in Kingsmorton in Birmingham, we used to stand in twos or occasionally threes near the abortion centre. We never had any posters at all and simply offered a leaflet of help to anyone entering with the words, can I offer you a leaflet? We know many, many women who felt empowered to make the choice they wanted to make to continue their pregnancy because of the support we offered them, which might be financial support, accommodation, childcare, friendship, baby goods, private medical care, et cetera. Essentially, service is not offered by the abortion providers. Some of the locals in Birmingham campaigned to bring in a buffer zone, despite us offering to discuss any concerns they had. The police even arranged a meeting for us, abortion staff, locals and council members to attend, but we were the only ones who bothered to show up. Since the onset of the Birmingham buffer zone in 2022, I've been arrested simply for standing silently near the closed abortion centre, the justification being that this was intimidating service users. It was closed, there were no service users. After having to clear my name in court, I was re-arrested two weeks later, being told my silent prayers were an offence. My concerns are this is what will end up happening in Scotland. Since it's clear this isn't really about women being harassed, we have laws for that and all campaign leaders would willingly work with any authority to condemn harassment. From my experience, any women who've been anxious going for an abortion, apart from concerns about the abortion itself, were anxious about what they thought we might do because of the negative and twisted stories that are written about pro-lifers. What people hear or read about us is the chief cause of anxiety, and to my knowledge, this issue hasn't really been addressed at all. My volunteers now pray outside the nearest Catholic Church, a long way from the abortion centre. Locals have now said they want the church moved, and my volunteers have been screamed at, spat at, sworn at, even physically assaulted. Viewpoint-based censoring will inevitably expand beyond the buffer zone. This zone has created a huge amount of division in the area, with locals who support us telling me they're terrified that their neighbours might find out what their beliefs are. The community has become polarised, and it's fostered the sense of intolerance, which was the real issue to start with. Pro-lifers have been demonised, we've even had politicians calling us perverts. This has got to stop. We now have a whole section of society being treated as social priors for offering help to pregnant women, and proposed new legislation is simply endorsing this. I wholly recommend that the Scottish Government protect freedom of thought and speech in Scotland, and promote tolerance as opposed to censorship. Thank you as well. We'll now move to questions from the whole panel, and I'd like to invite Ivan McKee to start. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thanks for coming along this morning, virtually or in person. We're keen to get your perspective on a number of aspects of the bill. The first thing I'd like to explore is around the way that the bill focuses on behaviours, and it's defined as behaviours that may cause harassment, alarm or distress, as you're aware. The first question is how does that word in your experience relate to the activities that are conducted by groups standing outside abortion provision centres? How does that word in relate to what you experience that occurs outside the centres? I don't know who wants to go first. Thank you very much. Just to say that we're grateful for this opportunity to speak to the committee so that we can present the views of those who hold pro-life views and who want to hold these vigils, and also, as the bill said, to try to help women who may well want to help at that particular point. Behaviour, Ivan, is, as the police described, static, peaceful vigils. That's the behaviour. It would be in effect, as far as we can see, criminalising static, peaceful vigils. Just to reiterate what Bishop John has said, pro-life vigils in Scotland are a peaceful presence, primarily there to pray and not a protest. There's never been an arrest relating to pro-life vigils, and Police Scotland have confirmed both in writing and to this committee, as I understand, that existing legislation is sufficient in the event of intimidation and harassment, but no behaviour of pro-life vigils has ever met that threshold. To echo a concern raised by Isabel, the proposed bill makes explicit mention to silent individuals and to prayer. To criminalise prayer and thought is an alarming precedent to set, and one that I would encourage this committee to consider the ramifications of, and how thought and silent prayer might fit that description that Mr McKee has stated. I don't know if anyone online wants to comment on that issue. Moving on from that, I suppose that we've been interested in understanding how, if the bill is passed and those behaviours are protesting it, clinics are made illegal. How that would impact on the individuals who take part in those protests at the moment. We heard some evidence in private session on that, so I'd be really keen to get your perspective on that this morning as well. The individuals who take part in the protests? I think that, as Isabel made the point, we are concerned that the pro-life view is a view that is fairly mainstream in Scottish society. It's held reasonably. It's held those who would hold it would open the basis of some scientific evidence of the nature of what happens in the womb, we would say, the child in the womb, that's how we would put it. It's a reasonable position to hold in Scottish society. It's held by the Catholic Church in Scotland and it is held in good faith. So our concern is, as was expressed by Alina, is that it almost is saying that to be pro-life is inappropriate. To be pro-life is unacceptable. Remember, there is the provision in this bill to extend it to GP clinics, to counselling services, to pharmacies, so potentially this bill allows for these zones where it's unacceptable to be pro-life in Scotland. Laws affect social perceptions and I think that we need to be really careful that we can down the road of legislating for this. It really makes almost, in popular opinion, unacceptable to position to be pro-life. I think that the human rights issues and the wider impact in the Shisella prayer are something that we're going to come on and talk about later in the session, but we'll certainly come back to that. Final point, I was... Oh, sorry, please. Dr Pickering, would you like to come in? Thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity to contribute. You've asked the question about protest, but I think it's very significant that the word protest does not occur in the text of the bill. The offence that is being created is that of influencing anyone who may wish to access abortion. The bill is called the safe access zones, as we've heard already. I don't think there's an issue about safety for those trying to get to premises or even access. The real question is about influence, and there is an assumption by much of the evidence or the discussion around this, that any influence which might lead a woman to make a different choice, such as Alina did, that that influence is always negative, and it's put in terms of protest. We're given the impression that people will be shouting or waving back out, and I think Isabel's very cogently talked about the perception that is given, but actually we're generally talking about the provision of information, and so that is definitely that would be an effect of this bill to reduce the information that is being given to women. I think it's really important to be clear that in that question of influence, which is central to the bill, in a really polarised ethical issue such as abortion, there are very few neutral spaces, there are very few neutral opinions, and the opinions of those who want to see this bill brought, who want to raise concerns about protests, as they would call it, they are often highly polarised in one direction, and even the staff within abortion premises, they are not neutral themselves, they may be very nice people, but still there is certainly a tendency to influence a woman in one direction, because that is where the staff have gone to, so this question of influence is, it assumes that influence is always negative, whereas we've seen from Alina's story that influence can be incredibly positive, and it may simply be the provision of information, so that's my overriding concern, that the bill would bring in a banning of alternative information for women who are often not coming to for an abortion because they are settled on this decision, they're often torn, they're often in two minds as Alina was, they're often very distressed and disturbed, and simply having someone who says, do you know what, there is some support if you want to make a different choice, and we can talk with you if you'd like that, that can be really life-changing and transformative for many women, and this bill is seeking to bend that and limit women's access to that. Thank you very much, I think that the point that you made about the terminology, I think that it would be good to get your views and the views of others on the panel as to whether the information that you understand is provided in the clinics reflects that balance view and if there's options presented and counselling and other support there as part of that process and what your perspective on that might be, because that's again something that we've heard in private sessions, I don't know if anyone's got any reflections on that. Support of my role at SPUC is to work with women to help give them a platform to speak about their experiences of abortion, and while it's not universal, a great number of the women I work with do not feel that they were properly counselled at a clinical level ahead of their abortion, and do not feel that they were given all of the information in order to make an informed choice about alternative options available to them, about services that they could make use of, because the reason that they were considering abortion was primarily to do with external circumstances, and nobody took the time to address those external circumstances that were pushing them in a particular direction. Again, I wouldn't say that's the universal experience of women, but I know a great number of women for whom that is the case, and ultimately that is who pro-life vigils want to reach. To go back to your previous question about the impact on those who participate in vigils, I do know that this committee has heard from women who participate in vigils as a result of their own experience of abortion, and I think it's very easy to see the group of vigil participants and the group of women attending for abortion or of how abortions is being two separate circles, but there is quite a lot of overlap, and I think it's important to look at the situation with that nuance, and in fact it's people's experiences of abortion that have made them feel called to offer this lifeline to other women so that they can reach them in their time of need, where they felt that somebody wasn't there for them and felt that somebody didn't meet their need, and I think it's important to consider that nuance in the situation is that it's not so clearly one side and another side in this issue, there's quite a bit of overlap, and so I think that's something that's very important to consider. Yeah, and that was certainly what we recognised in the private evidence sessions we heard on this matter. I think, is it Alina that wants to come in? Thank you. I just want to add from my own experience when I went to an abortion clinic that I've asked for help if there's alternative of abortion, but I didn't want to, and they said they only offer abortion and there's no other help, and I already was in distress and upset because I didn't have any other options, and not even friends or family will support, so I received help from Stranger Co, please Stranger, and it's hard to believe that someone you don't know will actually give you 100 support, but abortion facilities, they will not offer this option that some moment they are looking for. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much. Fainel, sorry, please, yeah. Dr Peckering. Thank you very much. I think the question of information provision is highly important, and as Alina has just said, the provision of the information given in abortion clinics will often be around here is the procedure, here is what the procedure will do for you, and then a discussion of perhaps potential complications around it. Women going there will not generally be talked to about the kind of information that's saying a pregnancy crisis centre might be offered, so financial support, community support and other ways, and then there is often, very often, again, a highly polarised discussion about what kind of evidence is discussed, so if we look at evidence for how does an abortion affect the mental health of women, for instance, we will often hear pro-abortion campaigners saying that there is no evidence that an abortion can affect the mental health of a woman detrimentally, and yet we hear first hand testimony from thousands of women who go to pregnancy crisis centres, you know, sometimes for post-abortion support, who will eloquently say about the extreme mental distress that is caused by the memory of the abortion that they went through, and when we're looking at published evidence from journal articles and studies, again that is highly contested, there are campaigns going on right now that published articles in journals that show that there may be some negative mental health consequences in some circumstances for abortion, there are campaigns to have these journal articles retracted, not just for there to be debate or for another journal article to show a different side, but actually for the journal to say we should never have published this, and it's highly, highly politicised, polarised and contested, and there is definitely a campaign to show that there are no negative consequences from abortion, and I think that needs to be done responsibly, but very often you will hear from pro-abortion campaigners that pro-life campaigners will misuse evidence, use misinformation, that sort of thing, and occasionally that may be true, we certainly need to make sure that evidence is given in a responsible fashion, it's discussed appropriately, and at the Christian Medical Fellowship we're really keen that any person providing pro-life information at a pregnancy crisis centre has got really good evidence that they can discuss in an appropriate way, but we mustn't believe that people on the other side of a polarised debate are neutral, and there really is a campaign to suggest that, or to make it seen that everyone who has reservations about abortion is lumped in with the crazy Covid sceptics who would deny that Covid was even a problem, for instance, and we must be really careful about that. Great, thanks very much. I think from a committee's point of view, and we can connect to us later, but if there are data sources, that would be helpful, because this issue has come up in some of the sessions from different perspectives, and it would be good to actually get our hands on some specific articles on that, so thanks very much. I'll finish there. I'd like to just pick up on the point that Margaret was making in answer to the first question around this being about prayer, not just protest. Obviously, the right to prayer and the right to protest are protected differently and to different extents and different pieces of human rights legislation. My first question, though, is from a personal perspective as a Christian, it's a theological one, so Bishop Keane, I hope you don't mind coming to you first on this one. How important is proximity to prayer? From my perspective, I'm not aware of a reading of scripture that emphasises the importance of proximity for the purpose of prayer. Yes, that's a theological question. I think there probably is. So place is important. So for Christianity, we are an incarnational religion. That means that for us we believe that God in Jesus Christ came in a particular time, in a particular place. So that makes placing time not just important but absolutely crucial for our point of view. Places were important, so people could pray in their own homes. Absolutely, Jesus said, go to your private room and pray. But he also went to the temple, and that was really important to go to the temple. He says, we're truth here, gathered in my name. I am there in your medicine. He said, go into the whole world, proclaim the good news to all creation. Let me put it another way. If we are saying that the Christian point of view is that you only have to pray, and it's only natural to pray, or important to pray, in privacy, then I don't think that that would be a Christian point of view. You mentioned where Jesus said about going into private rooms to pray. That's in Matthew 6. What comes immediately before that is criticism of those who pray performatively for others to see them. You mentioned that Jesus did go to the temple, but the temple is the place that people go to. It's the place that people would go to and expect to see others pray. I think that there's a distinction between praying in a faith setting, in a faith institution, in our case, in a church, as opposed to in a public setting like this. What I'm struggling with here, from the Christian perspective, accepting that not everybody takes part in the pro-life vigils comes at it from a Christian perspective, but the panel that we've got today is largely the case. Scripture is critical of Jesus directly, immediately before introducing the Lord's Prayer. It's critical of people who pray performatively, and he calls on people to go and pray in private spaces. If what you're saying this morning is that the importance here isn't the protest, it's the prayer, I can't understand the basis for that as a point of belief, because what Scripture tells me is that we should not pray like that. Jesus is quite explicitly critical of people who pray like that. Probably two things. First of all, I think that where you're going with that could be problematic for human rights, because you seem to me to be making a distinction between freedom of worship and freedom of religion, which is actually something that does worry us as bishops in Scotland. The European Convention on the Universal Declaration is freedom of religion, which is the freedom to be able to profess your faith in the public square. There have been attempts to revise that to freedom of worship, which is that you are entitled to pray, but only in a church. We worry about that, because what it does is that it means that you are enclosing religion in houses of worship, whether there be mosques, whether there be temples, whether there be synagogues or whether there be churches. That's not what the Universal Declaration of the European Court of Human Rights, the European Convention of Human Rights, talks about. I think that we need to be careful about that. I think also in the scriptures, Jesus wasn't saying, don't pray publicly. He was saying, don't pray in such a way that you make yourself proud or arrogant. I think that's what he was really saying there. It wasn't about don't give a public witness, as far as I can see. I'm not suggesting that you should. I would just advise that Isabel Vaughan's Bruce and Dr Pickering would also like to come in. Yeah, I'm very keen that she'd speak to Isabel specifically about that. I didn't want it to leave the point lines. I'm also not suggesting that you should only be allowed to pray in a private space, i.e. in a church, but from a Christian perspective that's certainly what we're encouraged to do. Obviously our rights, the point that you make, Bishop, about our rights, rights are conditional because sometimes rights are contested and people's rights can clash up against each other. So I think the idea that there should be unconditional unfettered rights for some people to do some things clashes with other people's right to do other things, and this is about how we balance rights. I think that we would all acknowledge there's a balance of rights perspective here. I agree with that, Ross, but this one seems silent prayer. That's tantamount to being a thought. As far as we can see, as the Catholic Church, if you're criminalising silent prayer, you're criminalising people's thoughts, and I know that when the police were giving evidence last week they were worried about that, and I think of the human rights that are absolute and that can't be balanced, is freedom of thought. Other ones could be freedom of where you, so many other rights can be balanced, but freedom of thought is the one which is absolute, which means that's not to be balanced against anything. I think that that includes silent prayer. Isabel, it would be particularly interesting in your perspective on this, because you mentioned in your opening comment that your volunteers in Birmingham now pray outside a church, which is much further away from the abortion provider. My question for you is if it's prayer rather than protest, is that not okay to be doing it at or outside the church, rather than at the abortion provider? Thanks for giving me the chance to respond to that. I do want to keep picking up on this word protest because I don't organise protests. I've never protested outside an abortion centre, and I think that gives a whole different picture of the work that I do. I hold a vigil or we have volunteers that may be gathering groups of two or three, but we're not there protesting. But I do think it's really important to recognise that presence is something that's quite crucial for many Christians, and actually even for those who don't share our faith. I mean, for instance, if you maybe see a road accident, flowers would be left at the scene, or you might see something like a tragedy like 9-11, and people might go and hold a prayer service at that actual place. For instance, in the case of a situation where there's an accident and people go and lay flowers at the side of the road, or maybe a mountaineer dies and people go and place flowers up the mountain, it's not because those people are necessarily there anymore, or particularly for the case of a road accident, there's nobody there anymore. But that place, that presence, is key because, as Bishop Keenan, I think was alluding to the fact that we are physical people who operate in space and time, so place is very important for us. For Christians, particularly and for Catholics, I know it was myself being a Catholic, we'll go on pilgrimage to places where things might have happened hundreds of years ago, but that place becomes really crucial to our prayers. And likewise, with this case of abortion, it is really important to be at the place where we are praying. And the concern is particularly that, I know for myself with my arrest, that the prayers weren't even being manifested. It wasn't that I was kneeling down, holding rosary beads, or with a Bible in my hand, speaking prayers. They were simply silent, imperceptible thoughts in my head. In fact, the police officers had to ask me, are you praying? What are you praying for? The fact that someone thinks it's okay to be asking somebody those questions, questions which even my spiritual advisors and priests have never asked me, I think that's incredibly intrusive, incredibly concerning from a religious freedom perspective and freedom of thought as well. Thanks very much. If I could ask you then about the question of proximity. Before the buffer zone was brought in in Birmingham, you were praying adjacent to the facility. Now that's, I'd say that you were not allowed to, even before the buffer zone was brought in, you wouldn't have been allowed to pray inside the facility, in the waiting room or indeed in the room where the procedure is taking place. Do you agree that that was an acceptable limit, that placing some kind of limit was acceptable, it wouldn't have been appropriate for you to be praying in the room where the procedure was taking place, while it was taking place and that therefore this isn't a black or white about restriction or no restriction. It's about where we place that restriction. We've always been very respectful of private property, but we're talking about a public street now and I think that's that creates a very different situation when we're talking about somebody can't pray on a public street. So clearly other people are allowed in the street when I was standing outside the abortion centre, there were people standing on the street in different places around doing different things. They might have been looking at their phones, they might have been stopping to chat with friends. So clearly if it's a public street and we're simply banning thoughts if they're directed towards God, that's really concerning. Even if somebody else doesn't understand why we're doing that or the importance of that and I appreciate that other people might not understand or believe in all the things I believe in, but to criminalise my thoughts because they're directed towards God, I think that's actually discrimination. Thanks, I could just press your wee bit on that. The provisions in the bill would provide for the 200 metre zones and in some cases, certainly in Scotland in some cases, even out with that 200 metres you would still be on the campus of the provider. I just want to make sure I'm getting your perspective correctly when we're recording it correctly. Are you saying it would be acceptable even if it was beyond 200 metres, it would be acceptable for the no protest to take place on the premises, on the campus of the provider and your argument is that where it's a public space, a public highway, that shouldn't be restricted? I am talking about public property and if it's a place where any public people are allowed to go, then I've got particular concerns about that. But if we're trying to restrict silent prayer, I think again as Bishop John was saying, that's a concern anywhere. If we're saying that somebody can't think their own thoughts in a house, in a building, a silent prayer should be allowed anywhere that people are allowed because we should never, again, something from the Bible, we're told to pray unceasingly in the Bible, this is something that St Paul talks about. So for those who believe in the Gospels, believe in the Bible and try and follow that teaching, their prayer is something that actually should be going with them at all times in some way or another. So even on private property, silent prayer should be allowed, but I appreciate that it's up to the individuals who hold ownership to private property as to who is allowed in that property. But whenever anyone is allowed in a property, they should be allowed to silently pray there if they wish. But if we're talking about a public street, to say that somebody can't come into that public street solely on the basis of what they might be thinking, as I say, that's discriminatory. I completely understand why the emphasis is on the provisions around silent prayer. I'd be interested in your perspective on the other forms of vigil or what some people would characterise as protest. Your perspective is that silent prayer should certainly not be restricted and I completely understand that perspective. Where do you come down where it is? We have seen examples of where it's the placement of people holding placards with provocative messages on them, with images of an unborn baby or a fetus, where we have heard evidence of images being projected onto the wall of a hospital. Obviously walls have windows being projected into the rooms of a hospital as well. So I understand and respect your perspective on silent prayer. I think it would be really important for us to understand your perspective on the other kinds of activities that have taken place in Scotland, where it is more visual, more provocative. People would characterise it differently, but where there's more to it, if you understand what I'm asking. I think this is something that Alina spoke into when she said that we've got to be very careful that we don't patronise women just because they are pregnant. Clearly many of these women may be in vulnerable situations, but that vulnerability can go both ways. We know that coercion is a big situation, for instance, with regards to those who are seeking abortions or considering an abortion. If a woman at that stage is so influenced simply by seeing a picture of a baby, then it's quite possible that woman's mind isn't made up as hard and fast as we are often told. The amount of people that I've spoken to who have said to me that, literally until the last second, they weren't sure which way they were going to turn, whether they were going to have an abortion or not. On that one, part of the evidence that we've heard is important for us to talk about this. It's not just women going in potentially to have an abortion that we're talking about, it's all people accessing a service. We've heard evidence that women who have had miscarriages or stillbirths are deeply distressed to see these images. They might be accessing the premises for a completely different reason. In most cases in Scotland, it's a hospital and they can be accessing it for all sorts of reasons, totally unrelated to reproductive healthcare. However, if they've had that kind of experience, seeing these images can be deeply distressing for them as well, not just for pregnant women. Clearly somebody who's in a state of distress might be distressed to anything. They might see a woman walking in with a baby in a pram and that might distress them. When they're in the hospital, they might see someone else who's pregnant that might distress them because they want to be pregnant and this person is intentionally ending their pregnancy. There's all sorts of things that might distress people when they're in those situations and nobody wants anyone else to be distressed, but we can't start making all these things criminal unless there's something in and of themselves which is intentionally being offensive. I don't think any of these things are. I don't think that we can say that a picture of a pre-born child becomes offensive simply because somebody might get upset at seeing it any more than somebody carrying a baby is offensive just because it might upset somebody. Thank you for now reaching the halfway point at proceedings. I know there are three witnesses who wish to make comment on this issue. If I could maybe invite Dr Pickering and then two witnesses in the room and then we can move on if that's okay. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Thank you very much. I think Isabel's given some very helpful comments there and I think also the Bishop's comments on proximity are helpful, but I think it's the question about prayer and proximity. These things are often combined and I think if the overall main thrust of a person within this zone is to provide information, then we have to accept that that person may be praying silently in their head whilst offering information. Again, we've got to be really, really careful about criminalising thoughts. The other thing is, within that access zone, there are various other kinds of prayer which could go on. If a church is cited within an access a church could have a pro-life prayer meeting, it could be advertised that on a certain day of the month that members of that church will be in that church praying for women who are coming to that abortion clinic, perhaps even praying for the staff in a perfectly reasonable way. Now, if that gets out, if that is circulated by pro-abortion campaigners, there could be protests against the church. As Isabel has said, there is now campaigns to move her church, which is nowhere near the abortion clinic that is under consideration. Also, a private individual could have a prayer meeting within their home, which may be situated within a safe access zone. That may be advertised online for those who wish to come, but that is simply prayer focused on people accessing the clinic within the safe access zone. I think we're really into deep and murky waters if we start to talk about that. I'd bring the committee back to that question of the wording of the bill. Prayer is not mentioned in the wording of the bill. Protest is not mentioned in the wording of the bill and neither is vigil. It's influence. It's the question of, can a prayer in and of itself influence a woman? I would love the committee members to consider, are they suggesting that a person praying in their individual home or within a church or silently on the street, as Isabel has done, is that in and of itself influencing them? That is a theological question, whether that silent prayer is causing an influence. I do think there are questions about hastfulness and decency, and I would never support people erading around with placards of pictures of dismembered fetuses who've been aborted, that sort of thing. I think we do have to be very careful about the messaging that is given. I would never support people having placards that say abortion is murder, etc. But I think, as Isabel has said, you cannot start saying that any visibly pregnant woman or any woman with a child must be kept away from the confines of an abortion clinic just in case a woman may feel upset at the thought of what she's going about to do, etc, etc. We have to be really careful about that, and the offence is influence, and that's the key here. I think that one thing that I think is often missing from this discussion, I think we in discussing pro-life vigils talk about the experience of women presenting for abortion as kind of universal in how they view them. I just want to reiterate that it's much more nuanced than that, and it's simply not true. I know a great number of women who say after their abortion, I wish they were there when I needed them. Those are the exact words that a friend of mine Hailey shared, and so the experience is not universal. As is the experience of other service users who might be at the hospital for various reasons, if you'll allow me to be a little bit personal, although I recognise that this is not the issue at hand, I myself have had a miscarriage, and what I see pro-life vigils doing is reaffirming the humanity of the child I lost, and I see that as a positive thing. On the day I went to hospital to confirm my miscarriage, I had to walk past the hospital bookstore that it was in February, so there were cards out for Mother's Day. I found that deeply distressing, but at the same time I'm not campaigning for Mother's Day cards to be removed from shops. We are exposed to things that are upsetting and distressing, and people view them differently. There are a great number of women, particularly vulnerable women, who are at risk of coercion by a partner who are in financially terrible straits or whatever other reason. They're pursuing an abortion that they might otherwise not want, and even some women just say, I was just looking for a sign. I was looking for a sign that I didn't have to do this, and there are people standing out there with signs, and so that's quite literally being present to women at their point of need. I recognise that that's not how all women feel about pro-life vigils, but I just encourage the committee to see that the perspectives of women vary, and a great number of women presenting for abortion are ambivalent about that decision at best because of the various influences on their life. It is a varied experience that women have, and they have varied opinions on seeing a pro-life vigil and seeing the signs that they have and seeing their presence. If I do anything today, I want to echo the voice of those women who were glad vigils were there for them, like Alina, or those who longed for a vigil to be there at their point of need and it wasn't there, some of whom now participate in pro-life vigils. I think that their perspective is particularly important to this discussion, so I do want to add that just to the record so that people are aware that the experience of these women is not a universal one. If I may just bring in Alina quickly, and then Bishop Keenan, thank you. Thank you, thank you. So, from my own experience I've been through and as well I took part in these vigils, and I can say that the scan are not being shown to the mothers when they go on abortion facilities. Information are being hold by these facilities about the mother. They're not allowed to see the scan because they consider this woman incompetent of making a decision on their own, and I think it would be fair that what they should have shown these pictures, and if the abortion facility would show these pictures, why they find it so problematic if there is a baby inside. And regarding to Margaret's miscarriage, I did have, unfortunately, a miscarriage on Mother's Day, and it is a reminder, but just because I had a miscarriage I would not want to ban Mother's Day. It just doesn't make any sense. Back to the question of location again, because I think this is important. We could take places where location has been important, like Fastlane, and for years there was a peace camp there just outside the nuclear facility. It was important for them that they were at Fastlane. Similarly, with the Dungavel Detention Centre, my predecessor, Bishop John Mone, often went along to the protests as they were. There are vigils outside the Dungavel Detention Centre, because presence is important. When they were there, it concentrated minds about what was happening inside in terms of giving the rights and dignity to asylum seekers that they should have had. Similarly, those who were against nuclear weapons, it was important that they were there. I think that the question about being there in terms of pro-life vigils has implications for Fastlane. It has implications for Dungavel, but the same reasoning that could apply to those pro-life vigils can very easily, just to change the context ever so slightly, can apply against those who are for peace or whatever. That is important. Back to your point, Rossi. No-one is saying that there shouldn't be balance. No-one is saying that people should be inside an abortion facility or inside a harassing facility. Balance should mean that something that has a legitimate point of view should be made invisible. That is what seems to be the case here. It is okay as long as no-one sees it or nobody really who is in that facility, in the hospital sees it. We would say that that is not about balance. Therefore, I think that we would probably say the laws that are in place of which there are many, which are laws that the police have, they say that there are laws that allow them to deal with if something is harassing, there's a law there for it. If something is threatening, there's a law there for it. If something even causes distress, there's a law that they have in their toolkit for that. They can intervene if they think something is distressing even. I think that the evidence that I can say of the police is that they don't need extra powers. I sort of pick up from that that they don't want extra powers. I don't think that they want to be in a position of having to police thoughts. I don't think that they want to be in a position of having to police influence. So what would be the solution then? I think that going back to what did happen, as I think was the case at Fastlane, they all get round the table. Those involved in the NCND and the Peace Camp and those from the facility and the police, they all get round the table and at a local level, they discussed it and they came up with a solution. That's what we would propose as the church. To criminalise something as quite a blunt instrument, to criminalise rights as a blunt instrument, but is a solution? Is a solution maybe to be introduced into local authorities where an application is made to have a vigilar protest? Something could be in there, which would be discussion, arbitration, mediation. Someone could say, look, we happen to find this poster particularly triggering. Okay, well let's think about using another poster. There is a solution, which is around dialogue, negotiation, arbitration, where everyone around the table can see what rights are protected. But when you are talking about rights, and I think this will be the next session going to be, when you're talking about rights and you criminalise rights, then that's something, I think, is a failure. I think they'll always say that. That's a defeat if we had to criminalise rights. And when we do so, I think we have to say, every option has been exhausted before you take away a right. It has to be necessary. That's been no other means of doing this. It has to be proportionate. And in this, I think, there's unlimited fines for this. And it has to be, this has to be some sort of facility that when the issue is no longer there, it can be taken away. So that they're right, because that's the important thing, the right can be respected. And I think therefore that's why I think it's generally the case that we don't like to criminalise when it's to do with rights. Karen, what can you do with the supplementary? If you don't mind, thank you. Just briefly, it's just, I don't know whether it's further, Keenan or Dr Pickering, that may have an opinion on this. It's to do with the influencing. I find your discussion there very, very interesting. And I suppose my question is, at the point of time of influence, who is it that we're trying to influence in the different types of gatherings that you were talking about? So are we trying to influence the lawmakers, or are we trying to influence individual people to make different decisions? And I just wondered whether that was a thought with yourselves, or whether you thought that that would be approaching things differently. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's a very good question. And I think if people are looking to influence lawmakers, then they should be protesting outside Hollywood. And I think that question of proximity is really important. You go to the place where something is happening, depending on who you want to influence. But to my mind, the chief benefit of what some of my colleagues are talking about is the provision of information in the right context to women who are considering accessing those facilities. And again, it comes down to influence. There is a perception within the wording of this bill that assumes that any influence which might lead a woman or might even give her the confidence to make a decision not to have an abortion, that that is always negative. There is an undercurrent within the bill that abortion is essential healthcare, that women make black and white decisions. They're always fully decided to do that. And that anyone who gives them any information which might help to dissuade them from that is doing a bad thing. And we've heard that very clearly from Alina that that is not the case. There are many women or some women who will go very clear on that. It's not an issue for them. They just want to get it done and go home. And there are many who will go in great distress, in great turmoil, in two minds or more than two minds about what is the right thing to do. And the question is, what is the influence that the staff in the clinic are having over them? The bill doesn't actually discriminate between somebody outside giving information to a woman as she walks in or offering information. And then the staff inside the clinic, you know, will the committee start to police all the information and the counselling given to the people, to the women inside the clinic by the staff? Certainly, I would have concerns about some of the direction that that will go. Yes, abortion providers will talk about trying to be non-directive, but when you have something that is providing a service which has very polarized views, people who go to work in those clinics will often have the same polarized views. They will not be there from a position of moral and emotional neutrality. And so we have to think very carefully about what is the influence that that woman is having from the people in the clinic, whether consciously or unconsciously. We often hear that women who have gone to clinics, they're not provided with alternatives. And any evidence that they might have heard about perhaps the mental health consequences potentially, that's often denigrated and played down. And that in itself is influenced. So we've got to be really, really careful about that. Just a declaration of interest as a practicing NHS GP. I think that I would like to separate silent prayer and protest. And I want to ask about protest to start with if I may. Now, Dr Pickering has said that he would not support placards, shouting, pictures of aborted fetuses. Isabel spoke about how she doesn't organize a protest but her vigil. So is everyone in agreement that protest in the way that I've described and in the way Dr Pickering described is something that shouldn't happen outside of an abortion clinic. So protest, we've had a bit of theology. I think that the route for protest is protestary to speak on behalf of a value. So you're not speaking against something you're speaking on behalf of a value protestary. So what a protest is literally, I think, is someone speaking on behalf of life. It's vastly someone speaking on behalf of people. So specifically in the context that I described, not in other contexts. So are we all agreed then that we shouldn't have distressing images outside clinics? Is that the question? In the way that Dr Pickering also described the things that he would not support? Yes, yes, I think so. I think that's right. Certainly what we would say is that those, so if we're talking about for today's for life, I think they make efforts not to have what they would consider to be, as Mark has said, images of aborted fetuses or things like that. They would have if there was an image it would be a living fetus in the womb or something like that. I think we would say if you're outside these centres, you should have positive life images. I think that would be right. I think one of the reasons that we are quite staunch on distinguishing between vigils and protest is because vigils are what are happening and ultimately what this bill is proposing. We'll come on to the vigils, but specifically on protest, not vigil. So what are your thoughts on that? Absolutely. So what I mean to say is this bill is supposed to be responding to a current pressing public order problem and what I'm saying is protests aren't happening. So vigils are what happens outside of all of the providers, the regular events that you might see from 40 days for life or other groups are vigils and this bill is supposed to be getting at what is a current public order problem and what's happening are vigils, not protests, which is why I draw that distinction. I actually think that even banning protests would have implications for human rights legislation and I think that would be something that we have to be carefully considered. But what I mean, the distinction I mean to make is that what is currently happening and what this bill is aiming to get at are these vigils and that is why we keep coming back to the idea of these vigils and what happens. I'm sorry but I was asking specifically so you would you would not be against having placards with abortive fetuses for example being shown and you would not be against people shouting in the street outside of clinics. I would be against those things but I think current legislation gets at that already. Okay fine so I just wanted to be to be clear. So you know there is this distinction I think between protest and silent vigils and that's something that that we do need to look at. I think probably we do I think for in terms of for in principle for what Margaret said we do need to be careful about the word protest right so there is protest which is something which is legitimate human right to protest it vastly in it done game as I've said protest is is a human it is a human right but you're talking about so you're not talking about protest you're saying do you do we think it would be wrong and proper unacceptable to have particularly violent images that's the question you're asking isn't it but also you know shouting in the street or shouting in the street and shouting at people going into so you're saying so if I could just not use the word protest because I think it's confusing it I could if you asking would we be against shouting in a harassing or an abusive way would be against that. Okay I use protest because Isabel spoke about protest and the difference between what she does with vigils and protest so if I could move on to ask you if you have time. Thank you very much I was just waiting to be unmuted yes I do think that there is a very legitimate distinction between protest and the other things and I think Dr Gullane the things that you've raised you know shouting pictures of aborted fetuses I would not support those I don't think any of my colleagues around the around the table would support that as well I think those are covered by current harassment legislation and I think the police is well able to to deal with that the question really is you know that there I don't think any of us would support anything that is calculated to make a woman feel bad you know if that is the intention of it simply to make somebody feel bad for doing what they have decided to do I wouldn't see that as productive and I don't think many of my colleagues would either the challenge is how would you police that and I think the the bill itself is really you know to sledgehammer to crack a nut a nut which doesn't even exist as far as we're aware you know I'm not aware of these of the shouting pictures of unborn chill of dismembered fetuses being used in Scotland because if we if they were the police would know that and the police would have stopped it you know we might use it because so much of what we're coming down to is not actually about what we traditionally think of as protest again it's influence it's almost it's almost like you know the owners of a vegan cafe wanting to ensure that a Kentucky fried chicken is not within 200 meters of them because it may make their users feel bad it may you know provoke feelings in them that are that make them feel uncomfortable I accept that but that does not mean that we should be going to those lengths and I and as I said I don't think the kind of protest that you're referring to I don't think they're happening I don't think we would or we certainly wouldn't support them but that would not be the effect of the bill and really that's not the effect of those who support the bill who are campaigners for it that's not really what they're trying to stop because it's not happening I think it was important to draw the distinction and to understand your point of view of what what you termed and what isabel termed as protest and what was being said about silent prayer which was some which are two I think slightly different topics I do want to ask I'll open this up to the panel we heard from the from the session with the police and from the session with the solicitor that if this bill were to pass then there will be no distinction between protesting for abortion both pro and against or any other forms of protests regardless of what that protest is so against LGML or against the board or whatever what are your thoughts about that so I think that we're I took what they were saying to be that if there's a zone that says that someone may not protest about abortion then say someone was I think there was a case in Tayside where there was a protest outside a hospital regarding a healthcare worker who had had some kind of case against him I think the police were saying that protest couldn't take place either yes so I think that is an implication there that it would have the effect of stopping any and every protest and you can imagine the number of reasons who might feel as though there are concerns about what would happen in a healthcare facility there might be people concerned about low pay various other things that work in conditions so I think the effect of it would be that it would have a bigger effect really in the police's mind than might be countenanced and what do you feel that's right do you think feel that's wrong I think it's a matter for the police I think if the police are saying that then I think they want to they're the ex they're the ones who are placing it forgive me I'm asking if you feel it's right that we are not able to protest other things outside of hospital I think again part of the general point I would make I think as Ross was saying this there's this balance is to be struck when it comes to protests but I think in principle that it's important that people are able to make the protests at relevant facilities but with with a balance of rights and I suppose I just want to end on this theme we do have people who go to work in a hospital and they should go to work without feeling distress and we have people who are accessing healthcare and it doesn't matter what that healthcare is but we do accept they should be able to access their healthcare without distress do you accept that what is happening in around Scotland around the UK potentially but we really care about Scotland because that's what our parliament is do you accept that this does and can cause distress to healthcare workers as we heard in other panels and do you think that that is fair I certainly would accept that it would cause or could cause distress I think having to to witness any protest at a place of one's work whatever that be faz lane I saw a protest outside Barclays at the weekend having to see that as you attend your place of work is is distressing but I think it's important to remember um there's a case at the European Court of Human Rights in 1976 handy side and I just have a quote from the judgment here freedom of expression is applicable not only to information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or a matter of indifference but also those that offend shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population so that the fact that it's distressing alone is not the reason is not reason enough to criminalise and I accept that that it may be distressing I will not accept that it's necessarily distressing for everybody but that is is not reason enough to curtail that freedom of expression I would probably add sorry there probably add that legislation existing legislation already allows the police to intervene in the circumstances of distress but I think the legislation allows discretion to the police being able to say right the legislation allows us to intervene for distress is this something that we consider to be a distress that relates to a public order issue or a distress that relates to someone accessing a service so they've got that discretion already in the law I think then to use a measuring tape it's just it's why why use that which is kind of a blunt instrument which is already said as you alluded to which already will capture a whole lot of other people when it's probably much better to do it allowing the police the discretion which I think up until now the laws have tried to factor in thank you thank you we have covered a lot of ground but have so much yet to cover so I'm minded if witnesses are amenable to extend the session by 15 minutes to 11 a.m if that's agreeable that's great I also just want to cover an issue that was brought up in a previous evidence session which we haven't yet covered which was a concern raised that information distributed to people access in abortion clinics by those engaged in activities covered by the bill is not always factually accurate perhaps for example the medical consequences of the procedure do any of the witnesses have a view on ensuring that that is clinically accurate material that is distributed and not necessarily sensational stir alarmist it is my understanding that all the pro-life vigils that currently take place in scotland do not and have not for years leafleted people going into clinics and and they do not hand things to people going into clinics it is my understanding from people who attend that that is the case they might have certain things on hand which I believe may have been presented to the committee they might have certain things on hand if a discussion starts and somebody asks a question that might direct them to further sources of support but they do not hand out leaflets to everyone who passes okay thank you yeah we were able to source the leaflets I think we're referred to but we have them here if anyone would if you would like them I think they're referred to a blue leaflet and a green leaflet a blue and a pink leaflet and a color these are leaflets that have a London telephone number so we think these were leaflets which in the past were handed out in England looking at them when I look at them they're I think they're I think they tend to be factually accurate and in terms of the references I think they're the references are you know NHS and fairly reputable journals but if you if you would like them then we're happy to to pass them on to you but as I say I think that the so we only do those really to I think help the committee in terms of leaflets that have been referred to but I I mean I think others would know better than I would but our understanding is from having spoken to organizations that they're not used at all in Scotland. Thank you Dr Pickering. Thank you very much I do think there is as I said before there is a question about ensuring the accuracy of information that's given I think all of us around the table would want to see that women are given accurate information as I said before that is a highly contested and polarised space and there is an active campaign amongst academia and media to to shut down anything which may suggest that a woman might have a negative consequence from an abortion there are campaigns to retract journal articles I was listening to a British medical journal podcast about that now there's a supreme court case in the USA that hinges around contested evidence so yes we want to make sure that it's accurate and the christian medical fellowship does work with some pregnancy crisis centres really to try to make sure that the information that they provide is defensible and accurate and appropriate but we must not assume that abortion providers are neutral in this sense and abortion campaigners and I think there is very much a polarized opinion about that and if I may just very briefly come back to what Dr Gullhane said in the last question I do think that there's a really important question about whether this legislation would ban people from protesting about very legitimate and separate concerns at an abortion clinic if a particular abortion clinic or provider is shown to being given poor care, unsafe care or have any other quality or governance concerns then people should be able to highlight that and I think there is a danger that this would give carte blanche to poor care from certain abortion providers because there is a sort of what you know world view protection because you know they are operating in a contested space and nobody must question them I think there's a real concern thank you very much I want to move to Emma Harper. Thanks convener good morning to everybody we've heard a lot this morning about abortion clinics from various witnesses talking about abortion clinics my understanding is we don't have standalone abortion clinics in Scotland we have premises that provide healthcare for women and so I'd be interested in hearing about that you know purposeful influencing outside a premises that is providing a range of healthcare which could be including counselling would you think there would be a need to have any vigils outside of premises if you were guaranteed that women were provided all the range of counselling and services and knowledge in order to make the best informed healthcare decisions very interesting question if there were to be some sort of standard to ensure that that women had the fullness of information that the trouble is there is already informed consent legislation which should mean all of those things are covered and yet we're seeing consistently from the women I work with but they're still not sufficiently getting the information that they feel they're entitled to and so even if those procedures are in place it seems like sometimes they're not being met and I speak from from working with the significant number of women on this issue exactly particularly in cases where coercion has taken place and so I think if we could be fully satisfied that that information and support was being given and that abortion providers had the information to hand to to sign post women to other sources of support so one of the things that's interesting about abortion compared to medical other medical procedures is that often the reason that a woman is considering abortion is because of external circumstances and not specifically health related now that's not exclusively true so the informed consent need not only be about the medical things around the procedure but about well are you having this for financial reasons are you aware this financial supports available are you aware this housing supports available do you need to be directed to a shelter or somewhere that you can get safe from a partner or family member from whom you're at risk and these are the sorts of things that women really need to be provided with and if we could be fully satisfied that those things were met I think you would find that first of all I think you'd find that there were fewer abortions but second of all I think you'd find that that there would be people would feel less need to have a visual present there but the issue of informed consent around abortion is a lot more complicated than it is for for a lot of other procedures which is why I think I mean it's such an emotive issue it's it's why I think this is a really important conversation about what consent looks like in the context of abortion okay right thank thank you for that I'm not sure I believe um isabel alina and dr bickering wish to respond on this point so maybe invite isabel first thank you thank you very much um yeah just adding to what's been said um by margwet and in a way to reiterate what dr mark said that I think it's very hard to find a neutral space on this issue um and even if there were to be some sort of leaflets that everyone had said we were all okay with we all agree that that this presents the um the issue fairly and gives all the information even just the way something some information is presented um cannot be neutral so I think um certainly those who um um support providing alternatives to abortion um would be very concerned about um whether neutrality was neutrality was really happening um and and often a lot of the groups who provide help to pregnant women um aren't maybe big registered charities or large bodies I mean just that the organization I work with is a very small low-key um organization um in in a way that just makes sure that whatever anyone needs is provided and the women that we help are often women who can't be caused to the to the state who may be even sometimes it's people who might be um here illegally who are just really really struggling and that there isn't anyone else who can help them um with with you know basic help for their baby um these are the sorts of women that we might be helping that won't get help from um other people or if even if they do get help from other registered bodies it can take a long time um so um that that's one issue and I think also as we've mentioned previously the people who are outside of ocean centres are often there to pray as well um and that's something that even if um uh there were some other help being offered to women um inside centres we would still be want to be there to to pray about the situation um and that is a very important thing in fact I wouldn't want to be um handing out information if if I wasn't allowed to pray I think you know obviously from a from a Christian perspective from a Catholic perspective um prayer has to be coupled with all our work and and and being there to be able to pray is very important. Elina. So as one of the many mothers that have been received help and participate in these vigils I could tell from my own experience and interacting with these mothers in front of abortion facilities but abortion facilities are extremely biased um I've asked specific help if there's help available help there and they said there's nothing there's no help there's no financial help there's not even someone that can support emotionally and they only can offer abortion and I even call them ask them help again and the same answer I've been met mothers that have been coerced into abortion even jumping windows of abortion because there were stuff they should have reported but they have not the parents were forcing an adult woman to take a pill and so many cases that are not being um let's say deal with it inside they're just there's no help there's no help and if you have been helped these vigils have not been helped. Thank you. Dr Pickering. Thank you very much. I think the question asked by the member was about if we could be reassured about the information being provided there is an excellent way to reassure the different sides about what is being provided and that is dialogue and I think we heard earlier from Isabel that where that has been provided an opportunity you know with the police with the providers with those who feel um pell either to pray or give information outside often the providers do not come you know there is not a willingness very often from abortion campaigners or providers generally to dialogue I think all of us represented here I think would be very willing to have more dialogue about that you know when there was discussion in the in the Westminster Parliament about how the current government's effect on um is that the two child benefit cap um you know there's certainly concern that some women in England and Wales who are going for abortions are doing that purely because of that benefit cap and I did reach out to one of the major abortion providers to their chief executive and said look you know actually we could work together on this here is something that we could go to government about and dialogue with them and they weren't interested you know they responded they acknowledged it's an issue but they didn't want to talk to us about it so there's that real disconnect and distrust and the way to build that is through better dialogue through the kind of um panels that we've talked about but I think that really needs two sides of the of the um of the discussion to to want to dialogue as well. Thank you convener good morning panel thanks for your your evidence so far I appreciate it my questions were around human rights considerations and I think we've exercised quite a bit of that we'll come back if there's anything further you wish to say. Isabel spoke about spoke about her arrest for silent prayer I wonder if she could describe to committee what exactly happened with that in that situation? Sure yeah thank you for that opportunity so I was near the abortion centre as I've mentioned for the first arrest when I was there I was just standing near the abortion centre silently saying my prayers not even manifesting that in any way and a police officer came and asked me if I was protesting I made it clear I wasn't protesting asked if I was praying um he had to actually ask me obviously because you couldn't tell and I said I might be in my head but nothing out loud um and I was arrested on the basis of what I what I might be praying um and I had to be searched on the store or I was searched on the street very heavily um which you know potentially could be a very humiliating experience um and taken to the police station locked in a cell for hours um before being quizzed about what I was praying about um what what I'd been thinking you know what what was going on in my head um and eventually as I described had to go to court um for that and was acquitted um two weeks later um I was standing in exactly the same spot doing exactly the same thing and this time six police officers came in a van um and told me my prayers were an offence um when I said I didn't think prayer was offensive they just became more emphatic and said it is an offence and and again I was arrested um put on bail for for months after that and investigated for six months um it was a really difficult experience to go through um obviously I've highlighted it and and um publicised it because I think people need to know the reality of what these buffer zones um really mean um and to think that we're actually going to criminalise this prayer um throughout the country and throughout well not just in England Wales down in Scotland um I find that really concerning and like I say I think it's um discriminatory towards people of faith because simply it's just our thoughts directed towards God but clearly a really serious human rights concern as well um that this is simply our our thoughts being censored now okay thank you very much for sharing that I wonder if other panel members have any comment on um the human rights aspect and balancing rights as I say I think we had maybe had the opportunity to to to work some of that out through earlier questioning but I just wanted to open it open it up I mean as I was saying um I think just if we could all be cognisant that we are dealing with with human rights here uh there's human rights in terms of the universal declaration in terms of the European Convention on Human Rights those are based specifically the rights to freedom of expression freedom of expression includes specifically the right to receive right right to receive and impart information and ideas which really is all around this idea of influencing the right to freedom of association the right to freedom of thought and conscience which we said is not balanceable that's an absolute one and then also this the the one is you'll be aware of the right to privacy of family life and home life which would be there are homes within these buffer zones would be included so I I think for me when we use words like rights we we talk about innate not given or taken away by by governments they're innate to be respected by by governments and what they're doing they are and we talk about the inalienable can't be I can't get rid of them myself invalid when no one can take them from me so I think what all of that what that means in private is if what I've said it should be a last resort to take away these or to limit these rights it should have been established to be necessary and I think if I may say so I think we feel that's why this committee we would encourage the government to release the rocket science research because that was objective research that I think the committee could benefit from because and you're faced with a really difficult dilemma here you need all the help you can get all the evidence you can get and there is independent research commissioned by the government we welcome that the government commissioned this research that was a that was a really good thing that the government did let's try and get some independent incredible research on this that was good but we would encourage the government to release it to you so that you have an idea what's happening to see is it really necessary now again I thought I would say the police don't think it is that it's proportionate as well if you're taking away or limiting our right and minimally the proportion you do the only the very least that you have to do in order to preserve right and then as I say once the issue is passed or that's a facility that then any restriction is taken away now when that's why and I'm perhaps anticipating what will be said next but that's why those who are concerned about human rights say probably the last thing you want to use use the criminal law that's why it's smart but we want to use dialogue other more discreet collaborative means by which we can all not just balance each other's rights but understand each other's rights thank you um you referenced it so that you may have seen that last week in question in police scotland I asked if they would be comfortable in policing people's thoughts in terms of prayer and clearly they responded they wouldn't and they wouldn't anticipate asking somebody what they were praying about um do you think there needs to be a protection within the legislation should it go ahead that there is an exemption for um silent prayer I would say so yeah thank you um just a couple of points of clarification Bishop Keane and your reference research I'm assuming that the committee's aware of that and the clerks can um provide us with information on that yeah they are nodding in the affirmative that's good and my second very quick point of clarification and sorry if I missed this Isabel um when you were arrested um did you say that you were carrying no placards or signs or visible um information about why you were there and it was and it was pure on the basis of um your silent prayer that's correct yes I had no signs no no leaflets I was simply just standing in a street but I believe I'm the only person that this has happened to so thank you very much for that clarification David Torrance thank you thank you my questions are around coming offences is um in your view are offenses of a bill suitably clear they wouldn't be that and I'm glad that you raised that point there are a number of issues that um we sort of have discussed but I think the real I think what you're saying if I may say so gets to the heart of it is that we've spoken about this thing about influencing and what that means and that just I think again one of the one of the requirements of laws and criminal laws that they're clear people are citizens are free to go about their business unless there is a justifiable criminal criminal law and that really should be clear so I think in terms of the question about influencing um it is it isn't clear in terms of prayer what's prayer and is that a bad influence that's just not clear at all in our view there's another thing which hasn't been mentioned which is that it will require signage so if this if this seems to us that if there's a 200 meter circumference around for example the queen Elizabeth hospital that would really mean that there would have to be signage up all of the way around it says um abortion safe access so and we can't see it in other words now and if someone happens to be in there with a pro-life t-shirt because because they bought it at a conference a year ago and walked in that zone and walked in between two of these signs then they're potentially breaking the law and so inadvertently they can find themselves becoming a criminal so I think I think clarity is a big concern all right and I in itself and we're not sure that a bill that talks about zones can adequately go over that that that that difficulty and to add an example to what Bishop John just said I know it was a case in England that somebody having a pro-life bumper sticker on their car that was parked within a PSBO was was raised as an issue of concern and you know that wasn't put on intentionally to be parked in that spot it's just something that they had on their car so I think that is very important to be aware of and further to to your point I had raised at an earlier stage of this bill that if somebody is potentially in breach of the criminal law they need to know that what their action that they're taking is is in in breach I think that's very important and I think this bill is very vague in terms of what would would qualify as a breach of the legislation and I think that that is unfair on on citizens and I think that it's very important that that clarity is is put in I was told an answer that it was important that the bill capture a wide range of activities that we might not anticipate and I thought well people need to know if they're breaking the law I think that's that's quite plain and and I think that the same would be true for this piece of legislation I think also wanted to comment thank you very much yes the question was also around signage I think we'd need absolute clarity on publicly on what can and can't be done within that zone and I give the example of how I understand bylaws in Scotland can prevent the consumption of alcohol in certain public places in order to make that effective you'd need to have signs up saying you here are things that are normally legal but you cannot do them in this zone so that would be absolutely necessary for clarity but then it would also highlight the problem to women coming in to that abortion clinic they would need to know you are now entering the abortion safe access zone that in itself may produce feelings of distress in the women because it highlights the fact that they are doing something that some people might want to protest about and they need a law to to ban that and so it would actually be counterproductive whilst bringing clarity on what the bill was the bill would create an offense relating to behaviour from property within safe access zones which could be seen or heard what is your opinion about these safe access zones in these properties and I'm going to include churches which could be in these safe access zones again thank you for raising that point because this is what happens when you when you have a measuring tape approach to this as we understand 200 meters round the Queen Elizabeth or the the Chalmers Centre in Edinburgh it would take in bus stops it would take in churches it would take in schools it'd taken a convent now so it's it's just when you have the it would take in private residences so someone who might be as Margaret Stain someone might be just pro-life and and be pretty you know committed to it and might have all always had a little sign in their window but then but now once once you create a zone then and then someone complains about or raises an incident the police will have to go and knock on that person's door and ask them to justify why they have this I am pro-life sticker on their window transfer on their window it would inevitably mean that once once you start to have measured the zones and remember that the the the the bill has unlimited scope for I think as Emma Harper was mentioning it would have counselling services it would involve medical centres it would maybe involve pharmacies things like that so I do to have signage around all of Scotland and all of these potentially because the bill doesn't say that can't happen it would it would mean half of Scotland is potentially could become a a safe access zone and anyone within it could be potentially inadvertently criminalised which is why we would say again that there's a wisdom in the laws that are already there because they try to balance rights as Ross Greer was saying but in a way that doesn't require a measuring tape to be part of the police kit it just requires them to use their their discretion and as we've proposed again when it's when it's about human rights and just some of the common good and the collaboration and cohabitation in society dialogue you know that facilities that may be a part of a a local authority provision when when applying for licenses that part of that will be who are all the stakeholders in this let's have a requirement that they get around it we think that's a better way of doing it we just see too many you know unlimited and unpalatable and maybe even unworkable and consequences from from measured no goes no go areas Isabel Thank you yeah the fact that there's even a possibility of these zones extending into either private dwellings or churches in the area that's a big worry I mean churches have been around a lot longer than legalised abortion and the fact that we should even want to censor what goes on inside them or outside them it just shouldn't even be up for question I mean certainly from a Catholic church perspective and from many Christian churches being pro-life and being opposed to abortion is a really essential part of their teaching and but just coming back to the previous point that was being discussed I do think it's very worrying that we've got the word influence even being discussed as a word suitable for something within the law I think it just leaves a door open for really concerning scenarios you know are we going to criminalise a loving mother who just happens to be talking to her daughter on the way to the abortion centre saying you know do you know that me and your father would you know happily like help you look after this new child or something like that just like really every day family conversations that might be happening that could suddenly be viewed in a different light because of how we look at the word influence and like I say you know people end up becoming criminals without even realising that what they're doing could possibly have that implication and and really based off what you know we had we had an in-depth review of what happened around abortion centres with um Sagid Javid in 2018 and he concluded that buffer zones were not a proportionate response the government hasn't released the research by Wackett science has as has been described so really this is just being you know effectively based on on here say because there's been no evidence of harassment or intimidation around abortion centres so yeah I just find that very concerning thanks very much we're 10 seconds left but a very quick supplementary from Dr Calhanni thank you thank you convener and I will be quick Bishop John you've handed me these leaflets this leaflet and look I am a doctor facts really matter there is really concerning misinformation on this leaflet one in 17 women end up in hospital 100 abortions fail evidence suggests that abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer I could go on with this leaflet again it talks about breast cancer on this leaflet this leaflet is factually incorrect with what it's showing and I've googled the number for that we have here and one of the things on the website says with God's help they have closed 100 abortion centres do you feel given what I've said and you might disagree if they were factually correct or not but do you think that this is is acceptable so that was the point I was making that I think that's why it's important that we have this rocket science research available to you because the reason I sourced that for you is because it was led in evidence that these leaflets are given out in Scotland they're not they're not given out in Scotland so I think that's important for you to know secondly this has come up because there's been dialogue right I've handed you those leaflets you've said to me there are things which I find concerning or inaccurate if that had been the culture that we are proposing here those sorts of things would happen in the meetings where they can in the mediation meetings that we are suggesting there's someone from from from the hospital from yourself can say these are things which we think are not accurate and therefore need to be changed or these are things which are concerning and I have a dialogue about it which means the end result is that those who might have that sort of information are better informed as far as everyone's concerned thank you okay thanks very much we're right out of time but I really appreciate the witnesses for staying longer I think that it was it was a worthwhile exercise and just again we will probably follow up with written correspondence if there's any additional information that you'd like to to share with us in our scrutiny of the bill thank you very much and we'll now suspend the meeting briefly till I have for a changeover of witnesses so we're just going to resume our scrutiny of the bill we'll continue with a second evidence session on the abortion services safe access on Scotland bill this session will explore human rights considerations and I welcome to the meeting Ailey Dixon who's attending virtually and all others I believe are here in person Reverend Stephen Allison the public engagement coordinator for the free church of Scotland Ailey Dixon who's online of course policy and international officer Scottish human rights commission Rob Gowns policy and public affairs manager for the health and social care alliance Scotland known as the alliance and Dr Christina McMillan former convener of the health and medical law subcommittee of the law society of Scotland we will move straight to questions from members of that invite Ivan McKee to start thanks convener um good morning panel it's still morning a long session this one about it's still morning thanks very much for coming in and the issues I'd like to explore around about balancing human rights that's a very very important part of the consideration and the first issue referencing submission from the Scottish human rights commission described the task of balancing the rights in the echr in the context of this bill as challenging so i'd like to explore your thinking round about that and then if there are changes to the bill or other steps you think will be required to make the bill human rights compliant or more likely to make it human rights compliant so i don't know maybe ailey do you want to kind of lead off on that and then we'll go from there thanks very much thank you and good morning i'm really pleased to be here and i just wanted to reflect that i've watched all of the previous sessions that the committee's had access to over the last couple of weeks and found them really helpful and informative and that is relevant because part of the a key part of the proportionality assessment that parliament will have to do is the balancing of competing interests in this case between people who wish to hold protests or vigils or assemble in some other means outside of a premise that provides termination of pregnancy services and people who access the termination of pregnancy services for their own healthcare reasons as prescribed by law and as well as people who work in the settings and in addition people who accompany someone who's attending a clinic for the medical procedure termination of pregnancy or related information that may be provided so the committee is well aware that we're primarily talking about qualified rights here predominantly article eight on the part of those who wish to seek termination of pregnancy or provide termination of pregnancy as part of their work and the article nine ten and eleven rights to greater or lesser extents of the protesters that's not only the rights that are relevant and there are rights beyond the european convention and that may be relevant and in some very very edge cases there may be other absolute rights at play but predominantly we're talking about a balancing exercise between the article eight rights of some users and the nine ten eleven rights of the other users we described that process is challenging because these are very very important rights they're not something that can be qualified on a whim they have to be justified but it is entirely appropriate for justification to be pursued by parliament we are also fortunate that the supreme court has now considered the legislation in northern ireland which gives us a really good foundation to move it in fact the supreme court was really conscious in its review of the northern island legislation that the scottish parliament was considering its own legislation in this space and that is referenced throughout the proceedings at the supreme court uh that obviously the lord advocate in scotland took the case on the public interest ground um it's also referenced in the judgment so we can use the the judgment really really help to clarify some of the considerations however there are competing interests that the committee has to hear and that's why the the value of the evidence the scale of the evidence that's before the committee will be really really helpful in that regard um in general qualified rights such as nine ten eleven can be restricted by a general measure of parliament um we know that that's the case from case law at Strasbourg and domestically um even where in some cases that would create edge cases or hard cases where a more detailed proportionality assessment needs to be done so a general measure is is allowed and that would include in this case the introduction of the criminal sanctions and the introduction of the safe access zones um when determining whether something is a proportionate justification a justified and proportionate restriction of a nine ten and eleven right the court gives us quite a clear framework for how to do that and we will probably discuss elements of it but essentially um we can we can describe that does the does the relevant clause restrict the rights of that are protected by in this case nine ten and eleven more or less we can say yeah um there are again some instances where they will not be covered by the convention because of article seventeen of the convention which um wouldn't protect violent instances of expression for example um and in some there is some conflicting case law about whether article nine is necessarily engaged but broadly we can say nine ten and eleven are engaged then is that restriction prescribed by law and that means that it has to be um either in common law or in the statute as you're pursuing through the bill and is it clear and able to be understood and again we may pick up on some of those those themes does the restriction pursue a legitimate aim the supreme court decision on the northern island legislation is really clear here um and really helpfully articulates that with some clarity that the the right the the purpose of protecting women who are seeking termination of pregnancy is a legitimate aim and then the the next question is whether the restriction is necessary in a democratic society and this includes again subtest um which include is it sufficiently important is the aim sufficiently important to justify the interference with the fundamental rights in nine ten and eleven is there a rational connection between the means pursued and the aim that parliament is trying to pursue and are there less restrictive alternative means that may achieve the aim and actually achieve the aim not not maybe in in some cases the obviously the least restrictive means will be doing nothing but with that actually achieve the aim and you go through the option like that and the supreme court has done that with with very similar legislation so we can answer some of those questions with some certainty although there are some elements of the bill that the parliament needs to consider I think again it's it's worth stressing that um this is ultimately a parliamentary decision about weighing up all of the conflicting factors on the bill as a whole um and that's why the the level of evidence that parliament received is is so vitally important in doing that um and that the there will probably be be some edge cases of legislation is pursued even if there were some amendments to some of the perhaps more uncertain elements um the supreme court is is really useful in clarifying again that police will have to do that proportionality assessment on case by case basis courts will have to do that court proportionality assessment if it reaches that point that the a certain level of fine may be disproportionate so we're not we're not able to say in absolute that every single case will be proportionate but the legislation is a whole scenes on balance um to to consider at least all of these options and and it's perfectly within parliaments um discretion to be able to do that thank you very much there's a lot there and late to come back on some points a bit but other members of the panel an opportunity to to comment on any of that initially steven yeah thank you um it is a very challenging area to balance these different rights and there's a lot of detail that needs to be considered and I suppose coming back specifically on what's just been raised um in relation to the northern Irish supreme court decision I think it's it's important to recognise the areas where the legislation before the Scottish parliament is not completely identical with the northern Irish legislation and some of those factors I think should be given serious consideration by the committee first of all the context in northern Ireland is different because of the recent changes to abortion law in northern Ireland and particular evidence that seems to have been found in international um the international rights agencies that went in of an of a significant pressing social concern and I'm not convinced there's the same level of evidence in Scotland for that issue um obviously you've heard evidence from those who do engage in these kind of protests the free judge of Scotland is a whole don't so that but we are concerned about the broader human rights considerations of this legislation so the context is different the distance is much greater in Scotland than what was proposed in northern Ireland 200 meters double the length of muriffield is quite an extensive area um it was 100 meters with the option of 150 extension in northern Ireland the provision for unlimited extension without an upper limit is quite concerning to us as actually that is quite a broad power which has no real limitations on it potentially I suppose you could apply for judicial review of that kind of decision but that's putting an ordinary citizen who's a huge court expense to do that and I think it would be better if there was more clarity in the legislation and also the specific provisions in the Scottish legislation about private property are something that I think needs to be looked into a lot of detail so there are a number of areas where we're not on a complete par with the supreme court decision and that's why I think more should be discussed about some of those areas that's usually helpful thank you very much rob um yeah I think it's um I think there's a is a beating balance of of rights and I think there's um it's um I think probably in in our view um firstly that um that sort of abortion is healthcare um and that um a person's choice to have or not to have an abortion must be must be voluntary um and this is to do to may not be voluntary if it's if it's coerced or unduly influenced by demonstrators and it would be important for for anybody's ability to enjoy their their sort of right to health to be able to to access a healthcare facility without without intimidation and we know from um uh difference from uh from a sexual centre that um 56 percent of people felt very uncomfortable attending um if there were protesters present um and um we also know from um work on the um on the right to health in a sort of uh research that we did in terms of investigating people's knowledge and understanding of the right to health that stigma and discrimination can act as a barrier when people are trying to access information about the rights um and negative experiences of health services can um can play into that um we acknowledge there's a there's a delicate um sort of balancing act um that maintains people's um people's right to privacy right to health right to freedom of expression um however in line with um the uh kind of legal and and sort of policy precedences i think that failure Dixon has has referred to at the UK supreme court what's decision um it feel that the the sort of balances um has been met um and that um the it would be a sort of proportional restriction on on sort of people's rights thank you could you know yeah so just to add to that really what we would underline is that the government needs to meet both of these tests first that it needs to meet illegitimate aim um and as has already been raised supreme court has held that this would be a legitimate aim and the other thing is it needs to be proportionate and both of these tests need to be met in order to be compliant with human rights law and prevent the bill from being or eventual legislation from being open to challenge so to go through a number of things that have been taken into account with regards to that kind of balancing exercise um a lot of this actually you know it was all raised in this case on the northern island legislation member states are under a positive obligation where they do have legislation for provision of abortion services to provide a procedural framework to effectively enable access to those abortion services things that have been accounted for in case law on this are in terms of the article eight rights of women and healthcare professionals going into buildings regardless of what they're doing there are things such as adverse health consequences mental health um effects as well um something else that we drew attention to in our response is article eight rights of those working there so um their right to access um their working conditions in privacy and dignity and these of course all have to be balanced with while article eight is a qualified right these all have to be balanced with articles 9 10 11 as you've all heard um and so while broadly speaking um the legislation is in many ways similar to legislation that has been held to be human rights compliance the supreme court there's a few things that we highlight that might be worth review in terms of proportionality to make sure that it's not open to challenge what you know there was a comment there and i'm sure we'll come back to this there was a comment there on the size of buffer zones something that we noted in our response um while the initial size of buffer zones is larger and the ones provided for in the northern Irish legislation in the supreme court review of the of the legislation they actually noted that even a zone of up to 250 meters they specifically said it wouldn't be an unjustifiable restriction on the rights of protesters thank you very much um one of the issues clearly we've heard evidence on this morning and previously is round about the issue of silent prayer and bearing in mind that the northern island experience and the supreme court ruling but also taken on board the evidence we heard this morning that i'm sure you you heard round about the the woman that was was arrested for praying silently with no other visible signage or anything to connect her to any protest or anything and the interaction with the police that took place there and obviously they have this we took with it from the police scotland on this regard earlier um and i don't know to what extent you can or can't comment on individual cases but um it's certainly either that or in the generality um is there a danger that um while there are really may say one thing with regard to that it ends up being in a different place when the practicality of how that's implemented on the ground um it is taken forward or any other comments you've got with regards to that very parent issue round about the right to silent prayer the the chr writes on that um and um how that applies in the legislation in the supreme court ruling katriona thanks um so generally this is what this is one of specific issues that obviously has come up has been quite difficult with regards to measuring proportionality um one of the things that i think is it's quite dependent on the definition of silent prayer and what silent prayer activity includes if it if it can be for for example what was mentioned earlier just stand standing there basically right through to definitions of silent prayer also included things such as signage and the important thing i think to highlight from a legal perspective is while freedom of thought is indeed an absolute right freedom to manifest religion is not actually an absolute right and so there is um a degree of scrutiny required i think on the ins and outs of of where that boundary is with regards to silent prayer but um it's something that the law society wants to develop a position on and can get back to you after the meeting. I think i mostly agree with katriona on that that point um i think i'll i can't speak to the specific instances but um in in general terms it's actually right that article nine protects what what happens inside one's head um to an absolute you can't restrict that and so i think the evidence that we we heard please scotland last week about um how they envision being able to judge whether silent prayer is actually happening um was really helpful but also i think raises some some challenges as katriona sort of highlights there um the first thing i think is is obviously the the appropriateness with which police scotland could could ask someone what's going on in their head um but also then what source of evidence would be required to deduce that somebody was engaging in silent prayer with the purpose of or reckless to the consequence of someone who was seeking abortion or providing abortion services um so you would be having to look at things like the the presence of religious artifacts or signage or things they were saying out loud even if that was not related to prayer so it would be a bit of a challenge and there would have to be that proportionality assessment in every case as well as in the general rule um police and courts are both subject to section six of the human rights act which would require them to comply in not only how they understand the legislation but how they enforce that legislation um and you would expect that to be the case and i think that that spoke quite significantly to what police scotland was saying last week um i just wanted to pick up on a sort of related theme which is this distinction between silent prayer and protest and i think that's a bit of a challenging one when we look at it purely from the convention on human rights um because actually we're talking about the freedom of expression and the freedom of assembly and what one person might regard as being a vigil might it might be regarded as a protest by another person and the legislation doesn't seek to draw that that line anywhere it seeks to kind of cover the the manifestations of that those those two rights in particular um so it's a little bit of a tricky one to actually understand well what we would be talking about actually in relation to silent prayer is what evidence is there that suggests somebody is is doing something with the purpose of influencing somebody else in the safe access zone it wouldn't actually be an offence i think or certainly are their article nine rights would protect them from any interrogation about what they think so if someone is walking through a safe access zone with no visible you know religious or political affiliation visible on them we can't judge what's going on inside their head you would have to look for some evidence of there being an intention to to for that prayer to be heard by others or maybe not heard but but picked up by somebody else sorry sorry Stephen thank you um this issue over a private prayer is one of the ones that obviously deep concerns us as a as a church and the the precedent this is setting and whether or not that obviously could be extended to other areas i think it also it raises this this huge issue about the kind of grey areas of the legislation and i think that was just raised by alie about the question of is prayer influencing someone if it's private prayer in a certain context and i think that is crossing a line into areas that are deeply personal like i heard some of the discussion in the previous session about the nature of prayer place and presence and all of that but actually prayer is deeply personal to individuals as to how they feel called to pray in certain areas some people may do that in public some may not and i think we're getting into quite a difficult area with us trying to make law about theology and about specifically telling people this kind of religious practice is acceptable in this area but not this area and so prayer kind of opens up a whole area of concern for us about what is the intention of this legislation does that amount of influencing or not religious symbols are connected to that and even issues of religious symbols that are not necessary about pro-life but actually just religious symbols can be perceived as connected to this issue because obviously we all know the vast majority of those engaged in this kind of behaviour are coming from a religious perspective and so any religious symbols could be seen as influencing someone so you talk about buildings within the private property area and what could be outside a building people have talked a lot about a pro-life leaflet or a pro-life poster sorry or anything like that what about just general religious leaflets what about just a message to repent and be forgiven of your sins outside of church would that potentially influence someone making a decision on abortion and i think the answer is it could and so it's not clear how far this would extend and what are the limits because the way the legislation has been drafted is deliberately broad to catch as many things as possible that's a very interesting point and i don't recall us having heard that previously in terms of other religious messages that aren't abortion specific and maybe reflect on that i suppose just final i was just going to drill down a wee bit further on the the silent prayer issue because you know you've said that the definition of silent prayer can be broad in terms of including other stuff and i suppose if you pass that out and say well if those other activities signage or audible prayer or other symbols are dealt with in one regard if you like but just looking purely at the issue of silent prayer and certainly the example we heard this morning was in that space where apparently there was no other manifestation to link it to anything else is there a risk of that as problematic i think there is certainly a risk that including that could be open to challenge on the basis of proportionality but again i think that's something that the law society of noted they would like to get back to the question i don't know earlier is that anything you want to comment on no i think i've covered it i mean i couldn't speak to the specific case and how it was actually handled by by the police but i think i think my previous remarks speak to the general thank you very much thank you yes rebel navelson i suppose the specific case that you heard about earlier my understanding is a successful prosecution there wasn't a conviction for that but that actually is part of a broader concern that the police did feel the need to bring it the prosecutors felt the need to bring it and the effect that it has on people who are not guilty of the criminal law and i heard what the police scotland had to say on on this point and i thought it was encouraging that that was the general view of police scotland but individual police officers may ask questions in different ways and actually you asked me if i'm praying i'll say yes if i'm praying because i believe in being honest to you if you ask me directly i don't think i have a right i need to tell you i'm praying but if you ask me i'll tell you and so i think it is more the chilling effect of threat of prosecution and actually the follow-up to that was really concerning where six police officers then turned up for the next time so it's the that broader chilling effect which may not be criminal but that's the impact of this legislation thank you thank you it just has a quick supplementary on that it's an interesting point you made do you as a practical scenario do you see for example hospital chaplans being potentially impacted by this legislation i'm quite concerned about that yes actually because of the there are obviously exceptions in the legislation about other healthcare workers within the hospital context there are exceptions about the people who are who are accompanying someone who've been asked to accompany someone and are voluntarily doing that but i do wonder what would happen if someone asked can i speak to a chaplain can i discuss this with a chaplain can i go and would the chaplain be allowed within this legislation to to have those discussions within the area about particularly right perhaps you asked to speak to a roman catholic chaplain or a or a different chaplain and they have their own views are they healthcare workers in the same sense so are they covered by the exceptions i'm not sure and i think that committee should look into the chaplaincy issue more okay thank you ross greer thanks commander reverend alas i thought the comments you just made there in part in response to the question i oppose in the first session really interesting that i agree that in general we shouldn't legislate on the basis of theology but of course some religious practices are prohibited and law for reasons that we would all generally regard as absolutely justifiable because it's about balance of rights protection of vulnerable groups etc i suppose i'd be interested in free churches perspective on the the question that dr gohani posed to the last panel of would you agree that it's unacceptable for protest to take place in proximity to to a hospital to an abortion provider where there are graphic images on display dr pickering mentioned the previous session or dismembered fetus etc i'd be interested in your perspective on that because given the previous panel very very valuable evidence larger from the perspective of catholic system of belief i think would be interesting to have yours as well absolutely and i think on this issue there would be a lot of overlap with the catholic catholic church when it comes to life issues we tend to be in the free church in agreement with the catholic church and there are there are many practices that we would condemn and say that's not appropriate to do this and we do believe the existing law threatening abusive behaviour various breach of the peace would cover a lot of different issues and i guess when it comes to the specifics of displaying graphic images of dismembered fetuses or anything like that and i would have serious concerns about that in the same way actually that i would have concerns about you showing pictures of someone who has been murdered by anyone and so like we wouldn't want our news to be broadcasting beheadings we wouldn't want to be broadcasting anything horrendous in that kind of level because of the dignity to the person and so if i believe that the the baby in the womb is a person then that dignity protection means i don't want to be showing images of a dead person and so i would condemn those kind of practices as out of order and shouldn't be shouldn't be the nature of these kind of things and as i say i think there may be individuals in the free church who engage in some of this practice but in the whole we don't consider this the best way of discussing or engaging in abortion and our our concern is that i wouldn't want to stop someone from doing that like you talk about different readings of the bible different readings of prayer you and i might disagree on aspects of theology but i wouldn't want the state to come in and decide this is not allowed unless there's a very good reason such as i suppose cruelty to animals and and some of the horrendous practices in some religions that we obviously would all agree he should be illegal so there is a balance to be struck and i think i would on the whole agree with what was said in the previous session by the catholic church and others about things that we would not condone that we would actually have just as many concerns about but this legislation is so broad as to cover any attempts to influence and i'm very nervous about the idea that we can't persuade influence have dialogue i think that's that is going too far thanks very much so just on that then i think this gets us into quite an interest in police because she had a large amount of overlap with what the previous witnesses were saying we've heard quite a lot of evidence a belief that we have existing laws that cover breach of the peace harassment etc the challenge is parliament has been presented with it's been well covered in the media instances where i think what we would the vast majority of the population would regard as unacceptable behaviour as as harassment and intimidation has taken place but the police have felt under current legislation unable to to intervene now that is i'm not talking about all of the vigils protests prayer groups etc that take place but we have had examples of images being projected onto the wall of hospital and into the hospital we've had evidence of instances at the sandyford clinic in glasgo where people are using a speaker system so that they are not just harassing people going in but that the people inside the building can hear them on an ongoing basis as they say very provocative things the challenge like for the committee here is we need to assess why action hasn't been taken in those instances was it because the laws it stands is inadequate or is there a barrier to enforcing the laws as it currently stands and i'd be interested in Katrina and Ailey's perspective on this because a lot of these discussions are coming down to this question of how would we inspect this bill to be enforced and the judgment that would have to be made like the example that's been given in the previous session of the arrest that as Reverend Allison said didn't lead to a conviction i'd be interested in your perspective on the extent to which this differs from a lot of other areas of laws it stands where will we do expect in the first instance the police to make a judgment and then for the the fiscal obviously to to do so at the next stage and how much of those concerns could be addressed not through the or not on the face of the bill itself but through guidance either lord advocate guidance or through operational guidance for for police scotland so i guess the first thing that we would point to is that evidence given by various stakeholder groups healthcare practitioners folk seeking termination in terms of how effective the current legislative landscape has been in terms of preventing intimidation and harassment we secondly would also point to the evidence for a real need for this legislation which is something that's really important in terms of the proportionality assessment you know in in england while the upcoming legislation hasn't been tested in court yet they actually had a land legislative landscape that allowed for safe access zones to be enabled but for various reasons that's needed to go one step further for one reason or another that's not been enough so um what this all kind of tends to suggest is that the landscape that we have at the moment isn't necessarily enough to act in that way and there are various ways for example by putting principles on the face of the legislation which is one thing that we've recommended or adding additional guidance which can help um so yeah ailey do you have a perspective on that specifically that question of how much to what extent the concerns around judgment can be addressed through either guidance from the law and advocate in terms of prosecution or operational guidance for for police scotland and parallels with with other areas of law where that's the case I think I would remind the committee of what I previously noted around section six of the human rights act which requires public bodies and public authorities to exercise all their decision making in conjunction with the human rights act and and the tests that we've outlined previously so there is a there is a framework within which this happens and and this was discussed at length in the in the Northern Ireland reference at the Supreme Court in terms of parallels I mean there were many parallels I don't want to get into that off the the top of my head but that that general safeguard of section six applies to to to all and prosecutors and and I think the committee would be better to to get an answer from the Scottish Government about how they want prosecutors to to kind of handle some of those decision making and how they will work with them to make sure that that is exercised in a way that it's proportionate and does this balancing test appropriately um obviously the the the clearer things are on the face of the legislation the less room there is for hard cases um but also the the level of discretion can also be helpful so it's a judgment call really um for the for the committee to make about the extent to which you you want to be incredibly precise and to the extent to which you want to rely for some um interpretation as as novel ways of manifesting expression or assembly or religious belief in a way that that is harmful um to to people who are trying to act with termination of pregnancy or is perceived to be harmful is managed thanks arch thanks all Emma Harper thanks very much convener good morning to you I'm interested in just pursuing questions around the definition of protected premises within the bill because I know there's um a future proofing aspect of it that might then include GP practices, pharmacies down the line so I'm interested basically what you think about the definition or the meaning of protected premises um yeah so I'm sure you're all aware that the the way in which abortion care is being delivered in Scotland and elsewhere has changed a lot in recent years and so our view I mean to be to be concise is that pro the proposed definition and the scope to modify included in there is appropriate partly because the landscape is changing with regards to abortion care and the legislation surrounding that but also to enable um cessation where for example it's no longer provided a particular organism okay so Ailey Nordin yeah um I'm happy I'm happy to you although I don't think I have much to to disagree with the previous answer on um there there does need to be some flexibility given the the speed at which things are are changing um safeguards around those determinations could be put on to the the face of the legislation around the requirement to consult or the requirement to undertake the the fair balance test um and also where I think will come on to it but but the zone and how the zone is defined may there may need to be some discussion about variability depending on the type of premises that that are added but I think it's perfectly acceptable um to have some degree of future proofing with that then Ailey in the allowing flexibility for 200 meters to be less or more or extended expanded depending on where healthcare is provided last week we heard that the chalmers is next to a high school for instance so in an urban area it might be different than somewhere where like I know that Dumfries and Galloway Royal infirmary is pretty rural and they've got more than 200 meters from the edge of the perimeter of the campus right up to the front door and there's two front doors one for midwifery maternity and one for main like general I suppose visits so what are your thoughts around the issue around 200 meter zone or the ability to extend up down change it map it pretty much depending on where the healthcare facility is located what would you like me to start with that sure okay um for the commission doesn't and has not said a particular preference for a particular size of zone we do note and continue to note that the zone proposed in the in the bill now has increased in size from what was consulted on and is larger than comparable jurisdictions in Northern Ireland and England and Wales there may be very good reason for that I'm not sure and I'm I apologize I've not read every single submission but there may be very good reasons for that but it would be helpful to to be really really clear about the necessity of that extension specifically within Scotland I have heard some description that it could be to do with the the particular needs at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in which case there is perhaps an open question about whether it's better to set a lower default with the capability of extending it to meet that particular need if that is deemed to be unnecessary elsewhere that 200 meters is deemed to be necessary for for one premise and not for others so I think it's something that needs to be looked at completely in the round um and and as I think Stephen noted earlier earlier it is one of the areas that is different to the Northern Ireland legislation as well as the the context and how healthcare is delivered is very different termination of pregnancy healthcare in particular is delivered in Scotland it's very different to England and Wales so there are not perfect parallels to be drawn here it has to be considered in the round um I'll just add that I think some of the reading through the bill I think some of the particular processes around extension and reduction um do you perhaps leave open the opportunity for a future government to introduce a 200 or for the 200 meters zone to be introduced by default and then that to be restricted to zero um because there's no lower limit but there's also no upper limit that decision taken by a minister would would obviously to my mind be judicially reviewable under the Human Rights Act because it would require ministerial discretion so there would be that opportunity for review um but I think it's as again as Stephen has noted and others have noted that the likelihood of taking a judicial review case in those cases would be um quite challenging so I do think that's an area that the committee may wish to to look at in some detail about the the necessity of the 200 meters why that is why that departure is justified it may well be um and as as Catriona noted the supreme court didn't say when they looked to the northern island that 250 meters would would necessarily be disproportionate in some cases that might be entirely reasonable um but yeah what's the default what's necessary for everyone and then how is that expanded or reduced and what are the limits on on that power um are there are the critical points so I we've obviously raised concerns about the the 200 meters I also we also noted that that increased from the previous consulted proposals which given there was maybe a lot less responses to the call for views from the previous consultation that is concerning that that's jumped without really people engaging with that 200 meters internationally is greater than I think just about every jurisdiction that has done something like this and the supreme court did talk about 250 being proportionate in some cases but that's where there's obviously been a decision to extend the 100 meters to 150 by 150 meters because of some reason and I guess I am quite concerned that most of the discussion has been about the Queen Elizabeth hospital and the needs there rather than what's needed for for all of Scotland because this is a a blanket proposal and actually a lower starting point would be if you're going to go down this preferable although we don't think this is the most appropriate approach I also do think some of the concerns have been raised about high school near Chalmers and all of all of that is concerning about what may influence someone that are legitimate activities to take place in a school what if there was a debating society what if there was a class discussing these issues knowing that there are people in the class who may be arresting with some of these these issues that could be influencing people and I don't think we want school people not to be able to engage in those discussions so there's a lot more nuance needed and I think in general this legislation is a very hard instrument that says this is that quite broad deliberately I think more nuance is needed about about a lot of the details and the distance needed in certain areas whether or not there are some areas that actually don't need safe access zones are you in some cases drawing attention to the fact in a local context that someone's going for an abortion in a normal hospital where people are not really thinking that's what people are doing here and actually you're there for raising that issue in people's minds that maybe that's why that person's going in there it's not I think there are a lot of difficult concerns in practice that have to be fought about me final question about how would we communicate to the public then that a safe zone exists so that's kind of like which can bring an attention to an area that is providing healthcare for women like signage came up for instance what are your thoughts around how do we communicate to the public about behaviors and then the zones I think that it's really difficult because I don't think we can necessarily be clear as to what is and is not permitted in these areas like it's actually not net we are worried about private prayer exclusively private prayer it's not necessarily clear that would influence someone would you really want to raise that on what is and isn't allowed in any signage I think this is a really difficult and actually it's why I do think existing legislation is sufficient and if it's not sufficient you could extend existing provisions where it is responsive to a problem that arises where an assessment is made that there is an issue in it so a protest being hijacked by two individuals who come up with loud speakers and start speaking very loudly or projecting if they are hijacking a protest the police could make a decision in that case and maybe you need to extend some of the existing provisions to make it clear it would cover that kind of thing but the blanket approach I think is really difficult to communicate to the wider public I suppose on those points don't have anything particularly on on signage as such I think in terms of the this of the 200 meters I think we would be I think that that would be sort of appropriate as a distance based on the kind of the geography of the of the sites because I think this is referred to in earlier in Scotland there isn't a sort of stand alone Linux so they generally larger larger sites and I think we've heard from particularly from from B pass and sort of back of Scotland around particularly the geography of the Glasgow site and the need for for sort of national national consistency I think there's in terms of protected premises I think we agree with with sort of part of the legislation but there's this potential that that the sort of the power to to sort of require changes to be made by by sort of regulations would be sort of would be would be welcome to to sort of strengthen that but I think that's it's important that that it is that it is sort of future-proofed and sort of could be could be added and but that sort of regulations could be scrutinised by Parliament at that at that point I think in terms of where sort of some of the it's are one of the things that we considered was sort of bus stops and public transport hubs and that for instance people may that and took protest out that said the hospital start congregating around the the bus stop and protesting there so there's the potential for I think probably that there's what we'd recommend is that there's sort of post legislative scrutiny undertaken of of the act once it's been in once it's been in operation there and see what's what's changed in practice whether there are good we can sort of guide some of the sort of other cases and with some of their decisions needs to be changed to reflect the sort of the different circumstances around around facilities in Scotland. Sorry, thank you. I just wanted to add off the back of those discussions about the size of zones and signage. First for the crisis, size of zones similar to Ailey's comments, the law side didn't have a specific position on how big the zone should be other than the size of zones should be informed informed by evidence and you know that's important to get and again with regards to making sure that the legislation is proportionate. The other thing that we highlighted in our response to your attention is both the unlimited scope for reduction and the unlimited scope for extension with regards to reduction our point really was that having unlimited scope for that might actually have the potential to undermine the very purpose of the bill and on the other end with extension our concern might be that it could possibly be open to challenge on the basis of human rights if there's unlimited scope for extension so something that we've recommended is that there's reasonable limits placed on both the minimum and maximum zones informed by evidence such as other jurisdictions such as evidence gathered by stakeholders in order to prove that it really is necessary which evidence does seem to suggest. In terms of signage that something that we have commented that ideally we feel is important to have that the zones are clearly marked so folk know that they're entering a zone where they cannot protest. David Torrance. Thank you, convener, and good morning to witnesses. The bill would create an offence relating to behaviour for property within the safe actors zones which could be seen or heard and we heard in the last evidence sessions that it could cover churches. Do you have any concerns about the extent of the offences and whether it complies with the European Convention on Human Rights then? I'll come in if that's okay. In terms of the offences generally what we've said is section 4 we're quite happy that these are in line with the precedent set by English case law of the Supreme Court judgments one and so forth. Something we did raise concern with is the offence in section 5 and the thing that you raised there with the range of activities could be visible and audible from perhaps it seems an indefinite perimeter and again going back to my point about ensuring that the legislation isn't open to challenge we think it's quite important that there is an objective and verifiable radius in which forbidden activities are restricted is made very clear and with a view to making sure that the legislation is proportionate. I suppose I'll go back to what I already mentioned in relation to because of the lack of clarity as to what kind of behaviour this could cover there are questions over will this go into other areas of rights and other examples that someone gave me was what about during a political election process if certain candidates or parties were putting forward a particular position in relation to pro-life with that stop those posters being displayed from a private property where it can be seen. I do think there's issues over religious symbolism and how that symbolism is perceived by people and I guess in general that comes down to a lot of this verges into subjective perception influencing like what influences you might not be what influences someone else and I think we have to be quite concerned with that like actually a lot of posters Christian communication stuff will impact different people based on your upbringing based on what you've experienced in life and so we have to I think it's very hard to know what may or may not be caught by this particularly when some of the public build some of the buildings could be churches in other spaces so I think a lot of concern is around that and as I said previously that's not covered by the Northern Irish Supreme Court decision so it could be an area of a real challenge where you may want where a church could be concerned about that depending on what they're based. Edychshun, mwystyrgyn? Just briefly to say agree with Katrina Broadley and Stephen's kind of overall all perception of that I think there is it's worth destroying attention to section four broadly similar to what has already been tested in relation to the Northern Ireland comparable provisions but the section five or the close five offence the offence influencing preventing access to our causing harassment in an area visible or audible from a safe access zone audible obviously it's where we run into some problems around signage and scope for what is audible in the safe access zone and how far away that that might be I think that we didn't go into this in our submission but it's worth it's worth highlighting that both offences can be committed with the intention to influence or that somebody is reckless too I think there's an open question for the committee about whether that is appropriate for both offences equally we don't have a view on that but it's it's worth just flagging that there may be a difference between someone who does something from a private property with the intention of influencing or otherwise preventing or harassing or somebody who has who conducts something in the private home that has the unintended consequence of doing that there may be a different a different test to apply that may be where the committee wishes to look further the fines that will be imposed for breaching the conditions in the safe access zones do you think they should I say because appropriate because many of the fines will be paid by well funded anti-abortion campaign campaigners so will they have the effect of stopping the activity in these areas or under human rights as prison services prison sentences appropriate if it's continued offences what we would say is this is this seems to be in terms of the fine aspect it's in line with other jurisdictions we note that northern Ireland have a have a limit of I think 500 pounds I might be wrong on that but generally we don't have a particular position otherwise other than it's clearly in line with other jurisdictions yes we would feel the the sort of the penalties are a sort of appropriate and that the the kind of level of sanction and penalty are a sort of matter for to sort of courts decide on a on a sort of case by case basis and that would be be sort of captured within the bill so for instance if there's this sort of repeat offending activities which amount to to physical or mental harm and situations where people's intent was to sort of get arrested and have their fine paid by by another or not to pay the fine in attempt to get imprisoned highlight I think that that can be that can be sort of determined by the courts and would be would be happy with that part of the bill Ailey Dixon would you like to come in yes thank you so the the provision on sanctions in the act is as others have noted considerably higher as the maximum penalty than the legislation in northern Ireland we didn't look at this in in any great detail in the evidence we submitted to the committee but in our initial consultation response we did look at sanctions quite carefully and reflected that there's quite a broad range of possible sanctions in comparable legislation so the French law on this is not exactly similar it it doesn't relate to a termination of pregnancy sites but it does relate to the the attempts to prevent the practice of interruption of pregnancy by outside of particular disrupting access to establishments is sorry the language that they use in in France and their law has a maximum of 30 000 euros and two years imprisonment and that was the highest I found certainly so there does seem to be a big spectrum I think the perhaps the issue here one Rob has outlined carefully is is people who may choose not to pay a fine in order to receive a prison sentence and therefore perhaps demonstrate or highlight their concern about the way in which the bill is being implemented if it became law and the other is it would be useful I think for somebody from the from the executive to set out what they expect the fines will be we would expect them to be considerably lower than the 10 000 that provision is is common across Scottish legislation about what what a fine looks like so it's not it's not directly about this legislation it's just the sort of standard default but what would they be expecting the fine to be in in these sorts of circumstances thank you convener good morning thanks for being with us I'd like to ask folks views on if the fielder or organisations fielder might be wider implications for other places or types of protest Stevenus yeah so we this was one of our biggest concerns about the legislation that we highlighted in our response that so abortion is a contested issue in society it's an issue where a lot of pressure is already applied to people not to speak about these issues so one of the ways the free church responds to these consultations is I actually invite members of the free church in a variety of professional context to meet with me and discuss the proposal so we I mean I prepare a response I do these sessions the people I meet with are anonymous and actually on this is one issue where they would have to be anonymous to meet with me and talk me about it in fact I think just about everyone I spoke to who other than I suppose ministers but people who I spoke to who were women involved in different in the legal profession and other professions and healthcare profession and in counselling felt they could not speak publicly in relation to this bill they were very concerned about speaking publicly I know there was an organisation set up to try and oppose this and only one of the five five people who set up felt they could speak publicly because of what they did and so there is already an issue and it's it's got worse in Scotland since Roe versus Wade in the United States which isn't really the relevant here in the same way but suddenly abortion has become an even more difficult for the issue for people to talk about in a professional context that obviously I can talk about it as a minister because my employer doesn't care but the but a lot of other people are concerned about this and I suppose so there's that chilling effect or and the symbolism of kind of anti-abortion views being wrong but I do fear that could be applied to other contested areas other areas where there are differences of opinions like we have many areas I'm sure you would disagree with us on in the church but part of our freedom of speech is to be able to to talk about it dialogue about it discuss it and I fear that you are setting a precedent here of saying this particular thing is out of order in this particular place and maybe other things could be out of order in other places in the future and this could become the precedent for other attempts to do legislation in a whole host of areas and so we we do fear this kind of because of the language of persuading and influencing which we think are quite helpful language we we do seek to persuade people of our beliefs we do seek to to call people to follow our beliefs they can reject that they can say what they like in response but we we do fear there is a you're crossing dangerous ground here by by pushing in this area abortion might be the accepted norm in society today what are things also become the accepted norm in the future thank you can I ask Ailey Dixon that same question yeah of course thank you um I'll start by saying I've not seen any evidence or any intention by anybody to produce similar restrictions around other premises so we would be speaking in the abstract um it's not of course impossible or without precedent so canada i'm aware they've had buffer zones in parts of canada around abortion clinics for many years and then there was some discussion whether it happened or not about replicating those for um covid vaccine premises um but that was obviously in the context of um a very public contested debate around vaccines and the use of vaccines in it in at a point in time but i'm not aware of that being the case in scotland and the the general slippery slow arguments would apply but but it's not something i'm particularly concerned about at this moment in time um whatever proposal there was to extend this or oh my love it's terrible i'm catching your eye but you're on screen i'm trying to interrupt you over the thing it's not i was just going to ask i suppose it was it was more about the sort of the wider issue that point to you i can't sort of imagine anything else where we'd be even discussing um sort of policing people what they're thinking um and i guess we've got examples quite close to home where protesting of um which would i think probably be seen as more mainstream is is being cracked down upon so do you have any sort of views on that i would go back to saying that i don't think there's anything in this legislation that can or should be used to interrogate what someone is thinking it would be the manifestation of how that is presented externally which is a slightly different but important legal distinction in terms of what is absolute and what is qualified so i i i just referenced that um where when i don't think this legislation is trying to please what people think and if it did or was applied in such a way i think that would raise um almost certainly raise compliance issues with the european convention because article nine um in terms of what is what is within the forum in tegrom it's absolute um but yeah i have i have no evidence that that this is being considered elsewhere um for other other issues um you may be aware of that more than i am um however even if it were the case that somebody was to introduce legislation in five ten years time to extend or replicate buffer zones in other areas um we would still have to apply the same legal tests around fair balance necessity proportionality all of the things we were discussing today so you would be looking at that proposal on its own merits and if you did not or if one did not it would be capable of being challenged under the human rights act within the current legal framework okay the other panel wish role yeah i think the um uh this of the points the edudix raised around um round sort of vaccination was was an interesting one because i think when um it's considering this issue then it's that is is it to support on arrow i think it would be content that it's um the bill is obviously particularly focused on on sort of abortion services and the issues that have gone on there um i think there's um drawer a sort of parallel to sort of going for vaccination if if people were um kind of providing misinformation about outside outside facilities or um if um people were trying to to sort of dissuade people from um from being being sort of vaccinated um outside that would potentially be what we would say but i i'm not aware of that particularly happening outside acceleration centres so i think it's quite specific to to this particular issue and the the sort of the protests that have occurred and the balance of rights there so we contend that it's not that this sort of bill wouldn't sort of open up um sort of wanted things into other into other areas okay thank you yeah we would agree broadly with the comments made previously on this you know human any interference with human rights has always has to be made on a kind of context case by case basis and here as you know i think has already been raised previously in the committee that the folk the rights being balanced here are in a way that the health of folk accessing abortion care against these other rights in a way it's quite a unique circumstance and um so i think it's quite important for us to underline though we don't think this bill should be seen as setting precedent for carving other kinds of protest and um if it if it were in any way um it would any kind of similar attempts would need to go through the similar kind of scrutiny so i think it's not necessarily or shouldn't be viewed really as a slippery slope okay thank you thank you um i think ailey dixon wanted to come back in on a supplementary point yeah apologies for where i did remember one example and that could be used in this context useful in this context which is members maybe may recollect when there were discussions around restrictions on protest outside of the Scottish Parliament and the commission did provide dedicated advice on that where we highlighted a lot of the freedom of expression implications of any decision like that and that the article 10 rights um and the 11 rights um relating to assembly so there was an example and exactly what we've discussed did happened that human rights were were looked at in in context but an important distinction was made um between service users um which is discussed at length at all i'll highlight um paragraphs 125 and 126 of the supreme court's judgment in the reference case which talk about the very specific context of being a woman or a girl trying to access termination of pregnancy and they talk at length about some of the maybe um have particular circumstances personal circumstances and it was an incredibly private but also um possibly um upsetting experience and they had no choice but to run the gauntlet of the protests and protest that happens at um perhaps organs of the state or political forums so there was a provision challenged in Russia um that went to the european court on human rights where there was a general prohibition around protest um at courts and that was found to be um disproportionate so sorry that came to mind as soon as i finished speaking but the very careful distinction between the users and the the people who are the the um either intended or or end recipients of the of the activity was made. Thank you that's helpful. Reverend Ellison yeah just a small supplementary point i suppose to the human rights operate different from other law in Scotland that often you've got this kind of this legislative framework that sets out very clearly black and white what you're trying to cover human rights are more nebulous like if you think when a lot of the human rights early treaties union you and equation were written there was no suggestion that abortion was a human or the access to abortion was a human right but that has moved and we may not be quite there yet but some of the cases are moving in that direction i guess my only qualification and why i think there is the potential for this to be extended elsewhere is that rights which are so broadly defined could later as society changes be applied in different areas of where they are today and that's where this may start to set a precedent in abortion now this act does not cover other areas i completely accept that but you are you you are maybe setting precedent in one area that could then be used in others for people wanting to make these arguments like these kind of safe access zones have a risen where if in a relatively short period around the world all at once because people have moved to discuss these issues we don't know what the next thing around the corner will be it's just another relevant case before bringing mrs mckay is that the citizens participation in public petitions committee is considering petition number 2049 calling for the scottish government to insures buffer zones outside migrant accommodation to protect occupants from demonstrations by anti migrant groups and whilst noting that there were a number of issues to be dealt with the scottish government has committed to look into the feasibility of that proposal so it might be another case that is worth considering mrs mckay yeah thanks convener i was going to recite that exact case plus some others because this morning of course we had one of the witnesses citing protests at dungavel which of course are the same issue but from the opposite perspective we've had obviously citing of ffais lane protests we've currently got protests round about arms manufacturers in the context of visual gaza conflict outside places of work we've got in respect to this legislation it's already been aired questions round about what is the scope for that also to catch protests round about cuts to health services and have protested outside hospitals with regard to arguing against closures or malpractice issues or a whole range of or even ministerial visits has been cited as a legitimate area for protests and outside healthcare facilities and of course the UK legislation they've understood it correctly and your lawyers and i'm not some of you was was in the context of broader legislation round about protest so i don't know if you want to reflect on some of that just to give us more comfort or not round about the scope for scope creep if i could just raise one aspect of that the i think that phrase protest again has come up before that because this legislation does talk about influencing persuading it goes beyond protest and that's one of the reasons why i feel that could be applied in other areas about influencing people persuading people in certain issues and obviously that's something as a church we're quite concerned about we do want to persuade people and have the freedom to do that so this is not exclusively about protest and that's one of the reasons i'm concerned about extension likewise as a politician we're in the influencing business as well made on that okay with the doctor sandesh gohan thank you and just to clear my interest as a practicing nhsgp katrina i'm going to focus on on you quite a lot in this so so sorry about that but can i just pick up on on other protests that potentially could be stopped because we heard in a previous panel from police and from a solicitor that this legislation might stop any protest about anything so for example about elgamel is that your understanding i'm i'm not clear that that is necessarily the case i think that's something that if there is a queer and that in the legislation should be made clear there are obviously legislative frameworks for other forms of protest example trade unions on and so forth so if that's not clear i would encourage the committee to to make sure that is clear here okay would you be able to possibly write to us to help us come to some sort of wording to to make that clearer absolutely and also obviously this is this is scotland but is it do you have some understanding of whether that is the case in other jurisdictions like in england in wales or northern ireland that's something we can add to okay thank you very much i also'd like to ask about private homes so our understanding is that if you are in a private home within the buffer zone you cannot put graphic images or other such protests or pro either way in your windows or around your garden to influence do you think that is proportional and is this is to pop question is this the same again around in other jurisdictions in england in wales and in northern ireland so to my winners in england in wales where they landed was obviously and i don't think anyone's suggesting covering anything inside private homes nor here nor anywhere else but they they did cover in their legislation which is not yet enforced activities which can be visible or audible in terms of whether it's proportionate again i would put a question mark on that for now and it's something that i think is another topic that we're quite keen to review in the law society and come back to you on is that something that's maybe not not quite so clear okay and maybe if i can open that question up to the panel do you feel that the private home section is proportionate i think i've already made clear probably not and it does go beyond other jurisdictions and what seems to have been done and what was considered in the supreme court case and i do think due to the lack of clarity as to what exactly might be covered that could be quite easily disproportionate in some cases but yeah it's it's not as clear cut it seems to have been tagged on to the legislation as an extension because there is a potential impact and i i we don't feel as proportionate no okay thank you um can i also um sorry if i may observe and pick up a little bit on some of the questions that i asked in the last panel right at the the very end about information being given to people that are going past the leaflets i was provided with had yeah gross medical inaccuracies i mean it's quite concerning yeah um and there's no policing of that type of information so what is what are your thoughts about the information that is potentially given to people so it is a very so we would similarly it's quite complicated i think we would condemn those leaflets which are inaccurate and i think that would not be anything so as i said we are not really engaged in the subtle we would be using such leaflets and inadequate information i do think there's a broader concern of creating the impression that only healthcare professionals can give any information about any issue actually but particularly abortion because there are ethical and moral concerns as well which are not going to be developed scientifically i think some of the issues over mental health are even are disputed within the scientific community and i think there are challenges about that and issues over coercion as well in the wider context so we raised in our evidence the example right so it's quite interesting what Rob said about not wanting someone to be coerced or unduly influenced but that's happening both ways because there is evidence of people being coerced to have an abortion by other family members in various ways and we cited the BBC's research that they conducted and also issues about deprivation poverty so there's a lot of factors beyond medicine connected to abortion that actually is not something necessary the NHS are going to be able to provide information on you're not there's not the money or resource to provide certain support to women facing these these decisions and i think that is where there is some amazing work being done by certain organisations not necessarily those protesting but there are organisations who do provide help lines who do provide support to people to consider our options so i i don't think you should restrict it to only medical professionals can can can decide what is appropriate medically we have to be able to enter into debate and discussion about some of the more contested issues while recognising that where something is clearly misleading right the breast cancer claims are just awful and i think we would all agree that's awful that that kind of thing and i've heard someone attempt to justify why they thought that should would be allowed and it's it's yeah that it's not clear and so while condemning those particularly flits while condemning misinformation i think we should all strive to be as accurate i think truth matters as a value to us as a church abortion is not just a medical issue and i would say that as a GP i do have people coming and there's a lot of factors yeah very clearly a lot of factors is not simply a medical procedure but i do have another question for you directly again on one of the leaflets it took me the number took me to 40 days for life and within the website that i've landed on it says with god's help with god's help here are the proven results in 30 coordinated campaigns over 100 abortion centres closed is that the point of the protest to close abortion centres that's a difficult question to answer as someone who doesn't engage in these in these processes protests at all i think for i think there are there probably a multiplicity of reasons why people engage in this kind of behaviour some people i've spoken to have a huge concern for the women involved and to care for the individual women that they encounter and that's very clear others do and now of course then if they if they have issues about if they are pro-life then they do believe abortion clinics should be closed but that may not be the direct issue why they're doing this there are there's actually differences of opinion within the pro-life movement between some organisations that want full abolishment of abortion and some who want an incremental reducing the limits various things and what is the correct approach to campaigning to to these kind of things and so there's a huge range of reasons why people are involved in these in these practices and i think in general though we have to accept that people are allowed to have multiple motivations for why they engage in their and exercise their rights so yes i think it is but i can't necessarily i'm i'm slightly skeptical that that that claim is true to be honest with you based on what i've seen that they've closed so many abortion clinics and i think that kind of if this is the same organisation that seems to have had other misleading claims then you may not want to to play stuff in that but um but yeah i don't it's hard to know um just not slightly on what you just said a moment ago about being a gp actually i have had more positive reports from gps about the conversations they've had with people considering termination because i think gps tend to know their patients more know the wider circumstances and that's been very positive i guess there are concerns about what information is provided by the service providers at that port and if people are going directly to service providers but actually gps seem to be better than this area so i think that is encouraging that's why primary care is the best type of care but thank you very much for this very complicated question thank you very much you thank your witnesses for unless there's any other points you wish to raise um that you don't think we've covered so far in the evidence sessions please do let me know okay everyone seems content to rest on that um if there is any further items you want to correspond with us on more than welcome to to receive that i think there's been some discussion about some items of correspondence that we'll follow up with um but just to reiterate our thanks for your time today come to the committee and help us scrutinise this legislation so thank you our next meeting on the 19th of march we will conclude taking evidence as part of the committee's stage one scrutiny of the abortion services safe access on scotland bill hearing for the minister for public health and women's health and then the member in charge of the bill jelly micai msp and with that that concludes the public part of our meeting today thank you