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Yvette Cooper Proposes Buffer Zones Around Abortion Clinics To Protect Women

The Shadow Home Secretary has called for the measure to ensure women can receive treatment 'without facing intimidation and harassment'

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called for buffer zones around abortion clinics to protect women from abusive protestors.

The Labour MP suggested the measure after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) warned of an increase of pro-life protests outside clinics in the UK.

Yvette Cooper has called for the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics in the UK. [Rex]
Yvette Cooper has called for the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics in the UK. [Rex]



Religious and moral protestors force women seeking treatment to walk past horrific images of late term abortions and sometimes try filming them as they enter or leave the clinics.

“Women need to be able to attend sensitive health care appointments – including abortion services – without facing intimidation and harassment. And health care workers need to be able to do their jobs without intimidation too,” claimed Cooper.

"We don't want the kind of harassment and abuse that we've seen in the US imported into Britain."

Pro-life protestors outside abortion clinics. [Rex]
Pro-life protestors outside abortion clinics. [Rex]



In the US, abortion clinics and medical workers have routinely been targeted for violence and destruction.

As recently as 2012, two clinics were bombed in Florida and Wisconsin by anti-abortion protestors.

In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed while at church for being one of the few doctors in the US who would perform late-term abortions.

In 2007, after a spate of protests turned violent, Massachusetts introduced 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics and prohibited protestors from talking to women as they entered.

[Rex]
[Rex]



But in June, the Supreme Court struck the law down as ‘unconstitutional’, claiming it violated the protestor’s right to free speech.

Cooper’s comments come days after a video of a pregnant woman standing up to abortion protestors in London went viral.

The heavily pregnant woman berated protestors filming women going in an out of a clinic in Southwark: “It’s wrong what you’re doing.”

“You don’t know why people are doing what they’re doing but you wanna be out here and judging.”

Pro-life protesting is on the rise in the UK so many would welcome the proposed measures [Getty]
Pro-life protesting is on the rise in the UK so many would welcome the proposed measures [Getty]



“Many people have been abused – you don’t know what their reasons are. This is so wrong on so many levels.”

While Yvette Cooper’s suggestion would be welcomed by many, the leader of the Labour Party was reluctant to throw his full support behind the proposal.

When asked, Ed Miliband said he would “have to think about” creating the protective buffer zones.

[Pregnant Woman Delivers Damning Critique Of Pro-Life Protestors]

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