Anti-abortion
activists who attempt to stop women visiting a clinic for terminations have been
barred from the facility using rioting legislation, according to the
campaigners.
Officer
issued Section 14 Public Order Act notices after complaints the activists
"intimidate" women to get them to keep their unborn babies, according to the Daily Mail. The notice said
the organisers intend to "compel them [the pregnant women] not to do any act
they have a right to do" and pose a "serious risk of disruption to the life of
the community". The force has since admitted its issuing was heavy-handed.
Staff
at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in in Twickenham, West London had
complained to police they were being harassed by the Catholic group, who conduct
US-style demonstrations outside two other clinics and show graphic images of
embryos throughout stages of pregnancy. The Good Counsel Network said their
activists had been made to feel like criminals, and do not stop anyone going
into the clinic or block women's paths. "The officers were very aggressive and I
felt very harassed and mistreated by them," one activist Justyna Pasek told the
Mail.
"I
thought this was a free country, but this reminds me of the communist rule I
used to live under when I was a little girl in Poland."The group, which calls
clinics "abortuaries" describes itself as "reaching out to women seeking
abortion who have not been informed about the risks to their physical and
psychological health and who have not been presented with realistic alternatives
to abortion." From the Huff Post.
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