Anti-abortion activists hold protest just outside Glasgow buffer zone to mark start of Lent
March 5, 2025
The group, who are part of the anti-abortion 40 Days for Life campaign, will continue to protest for the remaining 39 days of Lent.
Representatives of the anti-abortion campaign 40 Days for Life have held a “vigil” near Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to mark the first day of Lent. This is the first Lenten protest held in Scotland since buffer zones were introduced. As reported in The National, the protestors were confronted by members of the public. One woman told them “you should be ashamed of yourselves.” Referring to the hospital, she said: “You have no idea what the women there have gone through or are going through.
We campaigned for the introduction of buffer zones around abortion services, which came into effect last year. These comprise 200m areas around the entrances to abortion clinics,. Within these areas, it is illegal to hold protests or vigils. Last month, the US Vice President JD Vance wrongly claimed that buffer zones amounted to the criminalisation of prayer at home.
Our CEO Fraser Sutherland is quoted in The National‘s coverage of the protest. Here are Fraser’s comments in full:
“We are pleased to see that the buffer zones have worked as intended today. Those accessing clinical care, not only for abortion services but other healthcare too, have not had to face harassment or shaming. Today shows the scaremongering put out by opponents during the passage of the bill, about how this law would ban freedom of expression, was unfounded and without evidence. This law was supported by a huge majority of MSPs, and the Supreme Court found that a similar law in Northern Ireland did not interfere with the right to freedom of expression.
“The nonsense recently spouted by the US Vice President, suggesting that prayer at home is now illegal in Scotland, has whipped up a new wave of opposition just in time for Lent. In a sense it’s appropriate that a US politician is responsible, as 40 Days for Life is a North-American Christian nationalist campaign. It is part of a wider attempt by the US Christian right to export a grim and intolerant fundamentalism to Scotland and Europe. Secularists and humanists won’t let it happen.”
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