I was an anti-abortion teenager ready to protest outside clinics – but then something huge changed my mind

Now Ealing Council’s safe zone has been ruled legal, it brings me relief that people like my misguided 17-year-old self won’t be able to do what I nearly did. But we need to go further

I was 17 when I was asked to protest outside an abortion clinic.

A friend who I attended the same all-girls Catholic convent school with wanted me to come with her to the Marie Stopes clinic in Ealing. As a way of protest, we were to stand holding hands, silently praying for all the innocent souls who’d never be born while hopefully persuading women to not commit such a “sin”. We were to be led by a boy who attended a certain all-boys school in West Brompton.

I regretfully admit that at this age I agreed with ideas that most definitely aligned with pro-life rhetoric. A combination of subtle religious teachings and the knowledge from hours researching an essay on the ethics of abortion, I couldn’t understand how anybody would want to harm the life inside of them. I fully recognise that these views are abhorrent now, but at the time, I fully believed that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term.

Yet, despite being armed with this self-righteous thinking, something inside of me was torn. I had been so sure of my moral standing before but when it was time protest, said action felt extremely wrong. One question kept popping up: Who was I, someone who’d never faced such a decision, to judge those probably undergoing one of the most traumatic events in their lives? No woman casually decides to pop along to the abortion clinic, ready to excavate their uterus and move on with their day.

Catholicism teaches to not judge the actions of others, but here I was, deciding whether to condemn, albeit silently, people I’d never met.

After much soul-searching, I realised how detrimental these views were. I recognised how harmful my actions had the potential to be, all because I felt my “opinion” should be a reason to take away a woman’s bodily autonomy.

In that moment I decided that I would not be attending a protest led by someone who would never have to decide whether to carry a foetus to term. I have been unapologetically pro-choice ever since.

It brought me great pleasure to hear that Ealing Council were going to be implementing a 330ft buffer zone outside the same clinic I had been asked to protest at five years before. The 2018 decision came into existence after reports found that women were suffering “intimidation, harassment and distress” at the hands of protesters. The Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) prevents sanctimonious individuals from carrying out actions such as waving around placards of dead foetuses and harassing women acquiring care.

Last week, the Court of Appeal ruled that the safe zone was legal. Despite anti-abortion groups claiming the buffer infringed on their right to free speech and religion, Ealing Council will be allowed to carry on implementing it.

This religious passive aggression that is being cracked down on is just as harmful as it would be if verbal abuse and violence was a factor. Women have long spoken of the distress they felt seeing anti-abortion groups outside the clinic, with some even speaking of the long-lasting damage such an encounter can have.

In 2018, more than 200,000 abortion procedures took place. The medical procedure isn’t going away anytime soon, and unfortunately, neither are the people who protest. Anti-abortion groups claim that women getting procedures do not have a right to privacy, making them believe their vilification of women about to undergo a potentially traumatic procedure is justified.

People have the right to freedom of religion, but this does not mean that they get to harass and intimidate those receiving treatment. This should be common sense but here we are having to use protection orders on medical facilities.

I am so grateful that people with these intentions will not be able to target individuals. It brings me relief that people like my misguided 17-year-old self won’t be able to do what I nearly did. I can’t even begin to imagine the emotional damage my decision to silently protest could have inflicted on such vulnerable individuals.

However, this is not enough. The buffer zone will only last another two years before it runs out and the whole process of implementing it starts again. Furthermore, these zones are not mandatory across the UK and there is currently no government legislation in place, meaning that buffers are at the prerogative of already-burdened councils.

The assault on bodily autonomy is happening all across the planet. However, there are parts of the world were laws and legislature do try to protect women. In parts of Canada and Australia zones from 10 to 150 metres in size have been lawfully implemented, prohibiting certain destructive behaviours.

The UK government needs to follow this example and move forward with legislature to implement these zones in any of the abortion clinics across the country. Not only to ensure the emotional wellbeing of patients, but to prevent harassment and intimidation.

It’s been six years since I was asked to protest outside Marie Stopes. It’s been six years since I decided that I was pro-choice and would vehemently defend a women’s right to their own body. No woman should have to suffer because other people decide it’s their businesses to try and control them.