The debate over pro-life prayer vigils has come to Parliament, with a committee hearing contrasting evidence from each side.
MPs on the home affairs select committee were investigating the vigils in the same week that a fourth council voted to ban them.
The hearing came after senior figures from all major parties expressed their concerns.
A petition, signed by 113 MPs including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Lib Dem leader Vince Cable, urged Home Secretary Amber Rudd to introduce “buffer zones” which would make the vigils impossible to perform.
The vigils usually consist of pro-lifers praying and sometimes offering help to the women entering clinics.
Ms Rudd said in response that “the right to peaceful protest does not extend to harassment or threatening behaviour” and that she was looking into the matter.
The select committee heard evidence from John Hansen-Brevetti, clinical operations manager of Ealing’s Marie Stopes (MSI) abortion clinic, who said the pro-life vigils often consisted of 40 people.
Mr Hansen-Brevetti said that the police had been called, but were unable to act because laws against harassment only apply if an individual repeatedly approaches someone.
“There is a culture that abortion clinics can be targeted and it is allowed for this type of attack to take place,” Mr Hansen-Brevetti claimed. “There’s been an impunity that has been allowed to snowball.”
In response to the Ealing vigils, the local council became the first to pass a motion to restrict the vigils.
The council has not yet announced how it will put this into practice.
Since then, councils in Portsmouth, Southwark and Birmingham have passed similar motions.
The organisers of pro-life vigils strongly denied intimidating women. Clare McCullough, director of the Good Counsel Network, told MPs that Marie Stopes’s stories of harassment were “sketchy and vague”.
“There is no evidence of it because it is not happening,” she said. “If these things were happening, we would be in prison.”
When asked by committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper “Are you saying MSI and BPAS [another abortion provider] are telling lies?”, Mrs McCullough replied: “Yes.”
Antonia Tully, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, also gave evidence. She drew attention to the recent reports on the conditions in MSI clinics, with the Care Quality Commission ordering the suspension of some abortion procedures because of grave concerns about the clinics.
MPs on the select committee appeared to favour the pro-choice groups. Ms Cooper said: “We have heard a very clear explanation that if there is no further action taken by councils or the police or the Government, then the kinds of activities that some women clearly do find distressing and harassing will continue.”
Peter Williams, of Right to Life, said in a statement on the hearings: “We saw the real story of what abortion vigils intend, and do. So far from being hostile and angry, they are loving and peaceful. They almost always are about offering help and practical support for women who would often actually like to keep their babies, but feel they have no option to do so.”
Abuse survivor quits commission
Abuse survivor Peter Saunders has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by Pope Francis to advise on child protection.
Mr Saunders was given a leave of absence last year after his strong criticism of individual bishops. Fellow abuse survivor Marie Collins, who resigned from the commission in March, noted on Twitter that members’ terms of office ended on Sunday anyway. Mr Saunders said he had hoped the commission would have a more active role.
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