Back Off Scotland: The fight for abortion buffer zones

Lucy Grieve, Alice Murray, and Lily Roberts were students when they decided to campaign for 'buffer zones' outside entrances to abortion clinics.

Read more: If Northern Ireland can install buffer zones, why not the SNP?

Also known as 'safe access zones', these are proposed spaces where people are banned from harassing patients or trying to influence or prevent their access to services. 

Today, Gillian Mackay MSP is putting the Abortion Service (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill before Holyrood for the first time. 

Lucy Grieve is co-founder of Back Off Scotland (Image: Lucy Grieve)

"It feels weird because it's really defined my life now," says Lucy, who was an undergraduate at Edinburgh university when she co-founded the Back Off campaign.

Now she has achieved a Masters, works in abortion rights campaigning, and will be getting married by the time the Bill goes before Scottish Parliament. 

She said: "It could have been done much sooner. It's caused untold harm leaving it."

For Lucy it all started in 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic. She became aware of protests taking place outside the Chalmers sexual health clinic, which is in the heart of the student area. 

The now 27-year-old from Edinburgh said: “I think that’s why for me I was so interested. To sort of know that area and see these people outside it was quite shocking.

“Particularly during Covid as well. There were restrictions and people were congregating in large numbers outside the sexual health clinic. To me that seemed mad and completely unacceptable."

Anti and pro abortion protesters clash (Image: Newsquest)

She helped found Back Off Chalmers, calling for the local council to introduce safe access zones for people using the services there. 

Lucy said: "We’d heard of successful campaigns in England so we thought this would be a good six week campaign that will have a tangible result and we’ll have moved on from that."

They started gathering testimonies from women who had experienced protests first hand. Among them was Alice Murray, who had an abortion at Chalmers during her third year. 

"One of the big key moments was Alice coming forward with her story," says Lucy, "I have so much respect for her telling her story and putting her face in the newspapers at 19-years-old.

"I think it was such a brave and courageous thing to do and I believe that's why we got so much traction and why people felt empowered to tell their own stories.

"Alice was very open about her experience. We have heard hundreds of testimonies but putting her head above the parapet was extremely important."

Anti-abortion protesters in Scotland

Soon they were hearing thousands of similar stories from women across Scotland, from Aberdeen to Falkirk and Dundee. 

They soon realised this was a national issue which needed to be addressed on a national scale.

"Around the end of 2020, that's when Back Off Scotland started," said Lucy, "Then we started putting all our efforts into getting the government to come on board."

The campaign built national momentum and a conversation was arranged with women's health minister Maree Todd. 

"It was the most depressing call I have ever had," Lucy said, "She was so adamant they were never going to introduce legislation.

"She said you can't wave a magic wand, referring to us as 'girls', which I thought was condescending and arrogant. Hearing that was difficult."

Read more: Scotland buffer zones: Bill to tackle anti-abortion protests

Responding to these comments, Ms Todd, who is now Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, said: “It is completely unacceptable for women to face any fear of harassment, intimidation or unwanted influence when accessing essential healthcare services – and the same goes for healthcare staff doing their job.

“I am delighted that the Scottish Government are working hard to support Gillian Mackay MSP with her Member’s Bill, which seeks to deliver national legislation on Safe Access Zones."

Ms Todd said she is "pleased" the Bill is moving forward and "grateful" to those providing evidence to the committee. 

Lucy said the call with Ms Todd "emboldened" them to force the Scottish Government to u-turn. 

They applied as much pressure as they could, launching a petition, lobbying politicians, sharing testimonies and statistics like how 70 per cent of women of a reproductive age in Scotland live in a health board area which has been affected by the protests. 

Lucy said: "To us this is a really big problem. One in three women has had an abortion. There's so many women who have been affected by it since the 1990s at least and nothing has been changed. 

"I believe it's not a freedom of speech issue. It's an access to healthcare issue. Nobody talks about a woman's right to medical privacy. Even just praying or staring, the protests all have the same impact, people are scared to access services.

“Public opinion was in favour of it but the only people who hadn’t blinked yet were the Scottish Government."

Read more: Opinion: There is no need for buffer zones outside abortion clinics

At the end of 2021, Gillian Mackay raised the issue in Scottish Parliament, which saw some movement on the issue. 

"I think in many ways we had to shame the government into acting," said Lucy, "We have had to go on the news, film documentaries, to get them to listen.

"I think the way we have been willing to call out the government has been a strength of our campaign."

Lucy is hopeful about the Bill and says Ms Mackay is "really strong" on the messaging. 

But she is concerned about a clause which would mean ministers could be able to reduce zones to within whatever size they think is reasonable. 

She said: "I'd worry that in the future a minister would come in and change it. I would hate to think having this one line in the Bill would make it not fit for purpose in future.

"Apart from that I think it's a perfect Bill and I pay a lot of credit to Gillian Mackay. It feels like a positive step in the right direction for women's rights."

Alice's story

Alice Murray had to walk past protesters when she attended her abortion appointment at Chalmers in 2019. 

The now 24-year-old said: “I knew they did that but that’s one thing, having that knowledge, but when it’s so personal to you it’s really intimidating.

"It really impacted the way I reflect on my experience. I still managed to walk inside, I did go in and have the abortion.

"But when I tried to process the experience it was really overshadowed by it being so politicised by these random people outside."

Read more: Abortion clinic buffer zones will end 'intimidation and harassment'

The experience was her motivation behind joining the Back Off campaign. Alice said: "I was really sure about my decision, I've always been very pro-choice.

"But it really worries me that I found them being there really stressful, so imagine someone a bit more anxious about it, or who had feelings of shame or stress, it's going to be horrific."

She said she was "lucky" no one said anything to her, but it was "hard to ignore their presence".

"When you are on that street - it's tiny - it's very overwhelming, it's really unsettling,  it's impossible to ignore.

"I think some people think it's only harassment if they shout at you or physically assault you. Even people standing outside with signs is sending a horrible message to staff and patients."

Alice Murray, 24, of Back Off Scotland (Image: Alice Murray)

Some argue the vigils held outside abortion clinics - which see people silently praying, holding placards, giving out leaflets and sometimes confronting people - are a legitimate expression of freedom of speech. 

Alice said: "I’m happy for people to protest against things they don’t believe in. I think there needs to be a place for them to healthily express that, and it’s just not outside a clinic door. 

"It’s about balancing people’s freedom to protest with other people’s rights to health care, privacy and not being intimidated.

“When you are in that moment, when there’s people outside who are there because they are against what you are doing, it feels very personal. It feels so targeted, that you feel very vulnerable.

“I was very aware that they were there and I was being watched. It’s quite grim, it’s a horrible feeling."

Read more: 'Counselling rooms would end need for buffer zones' 

Alice, who is now a political advisor to a Scottish Labour MSP, said the protest meant she wasn't as "present" as she wanted to be during the procedure.

But she said after sharing her story she received multiple messages from people who had experienced the same thing, who felt more comfortable to tell their story, which she found "comforting". 

She said: "It should be spoken about more and people shouldn't be ashamed. We have come really far, but in your day-to-day, especially in Scotland, it is still stigmatised."

She hopes the 40 Days for Life protests which are currently being held outside abortion clinics in Scotland will be the last before buffer zones are introduced. 

Alice is confident about the Bill, but is concerned about what happened to the GRR Bill when it reached Scottish Parliament. 

"I know it's a different Bill," she said, "But up until it came to parliament people were quite supportive. Then groups really started to raise concerns. That worries me, the tide can quickly turn."

Lily's story

Lily Roberts was confronted with protests when she had an abortion at Glasgow's QEUH (Image: Lily Roberts)

Lily Roberts had an abortion when she moved to Glasgow, aged 18.

She was referred to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, which has seen some of the biggest anti-abortion protests in Scotland. 

When Lily arrived for her appointment, a group of protesters had positioned themselves on a strip of road she had to go through holding placards with messages like 'abortion is murder'.

She said: “It felt really threatening and really surprised me because I’d never really considered protests happened in the UK. 

“It was really quite intimidating and shocking. They were there when I left, there was a really horrible sense of surveillance."

Read more: Anti-abortion group starts 40 days for protest outside hospital

During the procedure, Lily's partner went outside to get fresh air and he was approached by someone giving out pamphlets with medical misinformation on them, she said. 

"They had clearly kept tabs on who was going into the clinic, which was massively concerning," said Lily, now 24. 

"It was their presence, the physical taking up of space feels like a very violent and intimidating act. Their occupation of that space and knowing it was something I was going to have to confront was something that was really intimidating.

"It played on my mind for months afterwards. It was very distressing."

Lily said she was given plenty of options by medical professionals and the decision to have an abortion was "completely right" for her, and she is appreciative of the care she received.

A 40 Days for Life protest outside Glasgow's QEUH (Image: John Devlin)

She said: "The people it really impacts are service providers, day in day out having that kind of harassment. It's astonishing that's still allowed to happen. 

"People go there for a multitude of reasons so the insensitivity is really appalling and has an impact on lots of people."

As much as it was a distressing moment for her, she said the incident "ignited" a desire to make change. 

She became secretary and then president of Glasgow Students for Choice, and reached out to Back Off with the suggestion of a national effort for buffer zones. 

She said: "It feels like a really pivotal point. It's taken a lot of work from a lot of people, working with Alice and Lucy has been such a privilege. 

"It feels like change is finally about to happen. We are just absolutely buzzing to finally push through this Bill that we have been working on for years."

Lucy, Alice, and Lily will give evidence as the Abortion Service (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill begins scrutiny by the Holyrood health committee on Tuesday (February 27).

A deadline of May 3 has been set for the initial vote on the Bill.