After speaking to three members of staff at the BPAS clinic in Bournemouth I learnt a lot more about the frequency and type of protesters this particular clinic experiences.
I thought it would be a good idea to compile all the information I gathered from my visit into one blog entry so it's easy to understand what the staff at the clinic endure on a regular basis.
During my visit to the clinic I was informed that they were currently being targeted by an anti-abortion group called '40 days for life'. This group runs two big campaigns a year, one in the Autumn and another during the Spring. The idea is that during these times the protesters will come consistently for 40 days to protest outside the clinic.
Alongside this, the clinic experiences other protesters regularly throughout the year with some being more active than others. Certain protesters will carry large posters, stand out on the road for hours and try to hand out leaflets to the women approaching the clinic in an attempt to stop them from going in. Some also carry cardboard boxes with different size plastic foetuses in. These groups of people tend to be quite verbal and more confrontational.
I was told by the staff that the leaflets the pro-lifers regularly hand out contain inaccurate information about unborn foetuses and lies about what goes on inside abortion clinics.
On top of these types of protesters, the clinic also experiences a group of monks who come to pray outside, a priest who kneels and sings hymns loudly and also random people who come on odd days to just silently stand and pray with a rosary.
Some of the protesters were described as being "very opportunistic". For example if the clinic receives a delivery, the protesters will make remarks saying "that's a van they use to dispose of things and pick up the dead babies". The members of staff at the clinic said that these type of comments even cause the delivery drivers a lot of distress.
Some pro-lifers place themselves either side of the entrance to the clinic, some stand on the driveway and have even opened clients car doors in an attempt to scare them away from entering the clinic.
I was told that every now and again protesters hold vigils where they trespass onto the property to lay candles across the doors so staff members have to make their way around them in order to get into the building.
Particularly on a Wednesday evening in the winter when its dark, protesters will stand out on the road with large boards as a form of intimidation. They have also followed and filmed staff members to their cars in the past.
Besides from the anti-abortion activists making remarks towards the staff; calling them "evil" and saying they are "killers". The clinic has also received nasty letters from people saying they hope the staff "get cancer" or "die a horrendous death" because of what they do.
I was made aware that a lot of the protesters they experience at the clinic are religious and tend to link abortion to an act against God.
I was informed that during the last campaign, '40 days for life' went round to the local Catholic Churches to try and recruit more members to do shifts outside the clinic in Bournemouth.
The clinic was also described as being an ideal target for protesters due to it being situated at the end of a cul-de-sac, meaning that clients and staff have no choice but to walk past the protesters in order to enter the building.
Overall I was quite shocked at the amount and variety of stories I was told where staff have encountered protesters outside.
Below is an example of a leaflet protesters try to hand out, as well as a rosary which pro-lifers leave on staff and client cars.
Photographs by Grace Lewis
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