Abortion clinics will be surrounded by 150-metre ‘buffer zones’ that severely restrict protesters after a landmark vote by MPs tonight.
Activists could be jailed for up to two years if they “seek to influence” women seeking an abortion, “impede, threaten, intimidate or harass” them, or “persistently, continuously or repeatedly” protest in the area.
The move passed 297-110 in the Commons, despite the government branding it a “blunt instrument”, after Tory MPs were given a free vote.
It will apply to all abortion clinics in England and Wales unless the amendment is overturned in the Lords, which sources believe is unlikely.
Campaigners hailed victory after years of calling for buffer zones.
Labour MP Stella Creasy, who led the cross-party amendment, said: “We have acted so [women] can access an abortion without having to run the gauntlet of protestors to seek healthcare.
“Ministers need to act swiftly to ensure that this change is implemented."
Richy Thompson of Humanists UK, a charity and campaign group for non-religious people, said: "Free speech is of course vital but it should not extend to a right to disrupt others’ ability to access essential medical services. The past decade has seen growing harassment of women accessing abortion clinics."
Home Office minister Jeremy Quin opposed the amendment to the Public Order Bill, calling it a "blunt instrument". He said current laws were enough and a “blanket ban” against protesters was “disproportionate”.
He added: "Within those 150-metre buffer zones there could be houses, there could be churches.
“But this would be a national decision covering all clinics."
Tory ex-minister Sir Edward Leigh said: “We're going to criminalise these grandmothers but so much of the Just Stop Oil people walk free."
But Tory Bernard Jenkin said “the present arrangements are not adequate” and “to rest on the status quo is not a sufficient response”.
And Tory ex-justice minister Victoria Atkins backed the change, saying: “In a perfect world no woman or girl would be raped, no foetus would have life shortening agonising conditions or endanger the life of their mother, and every baby born would be yearned for and cherished.
"But we do not live in a perfect world and this is why Parliament has settled laws for the regulation of the provision of abortion services."
Some 113 Tory MPs backed buffer zones while 102 voted against.
It came as a crackdown on protests branded “terrifying” and “highly draconian” by activists passed its final Commons stages.
The Public Order Bill makes it a crime to carry glue or a lock with the intention of sticking to a road, expands stop-and-search and bans some people from marches completely.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said many of “the kind of characters who glue themselves to roads” are “dangerously deluded” and have “the deranged notion that their ends justify any means whatsoever”.
“In the eyes of the militant protesters, the everyday priorities of the hardworking law abiding patriotic majority can always be disregarded in the pursuit of their warped schemes,” she told MPs.
She added: “I’m afraid it’s the Labour Party, it’s the Lib Dems, it’s the Coalition of chaos, it’s the Guardian-reading, Tofu-eating, wokerati - dare I say the anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption we are seeing on our roads today!”
But Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “It’s astonishing. The Home Secretary actually talked about a ‘coalition of chaos’? We can see it in front of us!”
She added: “You’ve got a selfish minority wreaking havoc. You’ve got someone who’s resisting all attempts by the powers that be to remove them, causing serious disruption, disorder, chaos, with serious consequences for the public, for business, for politics and for financial markets! But they’ve glued themselves under the desk.
“With MPs opposite, we wish them luck with their attempts to extricate another failing Tory PM from No10.
“But I suggest it isn’t a reason to change the law for everyone else.”
