Hansard

I commend the exceptional quality of all speeches that have been made in the debate and praise Gillian Mackay for bringing the topic to the chamber. I also thank organisations such as Back Off Scotland for their work on the issue. I congratulate Gillian Mackay on announcing her intention to introduce a member’s bill on the issue, which I will be supporting.

I have supported the introduction of buffer zones around any healthcare facilities that offer termination of pregnancy since I first entered this place, five years ago. I have sought out meetings with anti-abortion campaigners to discuss that issue with them. They maintain that there is a clash of rights at the heart of this debate, which I reject entirely. I do not believe that one’s right to freedom of speech should come at the expense of a woman’s right to medical privacy.

Campaigners have said time and again that the facilities are not used solely for abortions or terminations. I would say to them that, in that case, they are making things worse. They are creating a picket line to cross for people who are trying to access the most intimate forms of medical care. They say that they are not trying to be intimidating and that they are not being intimidating. I am sorry, but that is not for them to judge. If someone is in what is possibly the most vulnerable situation of their life, the last thing that they want to do is cross a picket line where they are being hectored and intimidated by people of a different view to theirs.

This is not a debate about free speech. Protestors are entitled to their freedom of speech—of course they are. Gillian Mackay has rightly indicated the very many platforms that are available for people who believe that abortion is wrong. Nothing about buffer zones impedes that right. The right to freedom of speech does not mean that one has the right to intimidate people—it just does not go there.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy is very seldom one that is taken lightly. We know that there are situations in which those who are pregnant change their mind about the procedure, but they deserve to be supported in that change of mind—that reversal of decision—by staff who are trained to navigate the complexities surrounding pregnancy, not by those who want to impose their personal opinion or judgment, often through a form of intimidation that, as I said, effectively asks people to cross a picket line. As a society, it is our duty to protect the mental and physical wellbeing of our fellow citizens. There are no caveats to that very human obligation.

I am proud to say that my party has long supported and campaigned on the issue. There is no incongruity—I speak as a liberal—between creating buffer zones and protecting freedom of speech, as I have already covered. We need to protect some spaces in our society that are free from any judgment or intimidation—such as those medical facilities that offer, as I have said, the most intimate forms of medical care—and we have been campaigning on those rights for years.

Three years ago, I wrote to the then Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing following the picketing outside the Chalmers sexual health centre. I also give particular credit to my colleague in London, Sarah Olney, who, in March last year, tabled legislation in the United Kingdom Parliament that seeks to prohibit anti-abortion protests within 150m of abortion clinics—as Back Off Scotland has asked for.

I have met anti-abortion campaigners and I will continue to engage with them, but my party will fight for the existence of buffer zones, because what is happening is simply not good enough. As we have heard, 70 per cent of people in Scotland live in health board areas where anti-abortion protests take place. In 2019, 100,000 people attended abortion clinics that were targeted by demonstrations. The people who are targeted by those protests do not report feeling supported or helped; instead, they report feeling embarrassed and shunned. I am sure that none of us is comfortable with the knowledge that thousands of people in Scotland face such intimidation.

I support Gillian Mackay’s motion, and I will certainly support her member’s bill.