Jess Phillips, the UK’s Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women & Girls, has shared an update with Marie Claire about the new measures the Labour government has put in place to better protect women and girls seeking abortion services.
“For too long women have had to tolerate other people’s opinions and distressing behaviour directed towards them, as they try to gain access to abortion services,” says Phillips in an exclusive statement for Marie Claire UK.
Speaking to us yesterday—the day a new law came into effect which sees a 150m boundary put in place around all clinics and hospitals offering abortion services—Phillips spoke of the need to protect women from the “vile, inflammatory language” being hurled at them by anti-abortion protesters.
The new law makes it a criminal offence for anyone to cross the 150m “Safe Zone” in order to cause distress or harassment — whether intentionally or recklessly.
It is now illegal to intentionally – or even recklessly – act in a way that could harass, obstruct or cause distress to anyone accessing this vital healthcare, or try to influence their decision to do so.
Jess Phillips, UK Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women & Girls
Two years on from the landmark overturning of Roe V Wade in America, which caused reverberations worldwide, the news yesterday felt like a positive step in protecting women’s fundamental rights. As Phillips said; “Access to an abortion is a matter of healthcare. Healthcare is a fundamental right.”
The rollback of women’s rights worldwide has left many women feeling that the stakes are growing ever higher when it comes to protecting our freedoms. It’s something Phillips acknowledged in her statement; “Regardless of people's individual and firmly held beliefs, we will not allow women to be harassed as they make hard-won choices about their own lives.”
Hopefully, this will be just one of many measures from a new government which has pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade and make misogyny a hate crime.
