Exclusion Zones Around Clinics Providing Abortion Services Are A “Tragic Necessity”

Bríd Smith TD says exclusion zones around clinics providing abortion services are a “tragic necessity”

Calls on Government to insure proposals cannot be used against workers or others right to protest

Bríd Smith TD has said the necessity of exclusion zones around medical practitioners and other clinics was a tragic necessity but that women had the right to avail of medical care without facing a gauntlet of abuse and intimidation and that medical practitioners also had the right not to be faced with harassment for carrying out their duty of care.

She was speaking after a meeting with health Minister Simon Harris on proposals to establish exclusion zones around clinics to prevent protests targeting women and medical practitioners.

The People Before Profit TD said:

“It’s is shameful that only a year after the historic vote to give women the right to choose,  which over 67% of the country supported, that small groups feel they can abuse and intimidate medical practitioners and women who are seeking medical care at a very vulnerable time in their lives. Ireland has changed and this campaign of harassment cannot be supported.”

But the TD also said there should be no spill over in any proposed legislation to other areas: “we can’t see this issue conflated with other civil rights issues such as workers pickets or climate activist protest, the legislation must be sure to deal only with the rights of women to access basic healthcare and reproductive rights free from harassment and abuse, both emotional and physical, it cannot be used to limit the right to protest of others.”