The wrong-sightedness of ‘buffer zones’

As of today, in Britain, it will be illegal to ‘intentionally or recklessly influence any person’s decision to access… abortion services’ within approximately 500 feet of the building. If the national law mirrors local prototypes, it may even prohibit silent prayer, or offers of help.

Politicians voted to implement these localised bans – known as ‘buffer zones’ – under the guise of needing to restrict harassment near abortion clinics. A noble cause, yet one without a basis of need. Harassment is already illegal in the UK. A government review proved that in mild-mannered England, instances of harassment near clinics are ‘relatively few’, and easily policed under existing laws. Instituting buffer zones would ‘not be a proportionate response’, the review concluded.

Despite the evidence against them, buffer zones were voted in nonetheless – passed under the watch of the Conservative government, and now implemented under Labour. In practice, the loose wording of the new ban – criminalising mere influence – could go far further than policing ‘harassment’, and result in prosecutions on the basis of consensual conversations.