The real need for safe spaces
They couldn’t be more than 20 years old; two men and a woman. The men kneel and pray while the young woman, a lifelike baby doll strapped to her chest, gently bounces the doll up and down as if rocking it to sleep. She is like a young Madonna and child with her two tracksuit clad disciples.
It’s Friday afternoon outside the Marie Stopes clinic in Midland, Western Australia. These three people are attempting to get the attention of patients as they come in and out of the clinic. As they catch a glimpse of a staff member they yell “Murderer! You will go to hell for what you do”. They stalk a patient and her partner as they walk outside for some air, whispering to them “Don’t kill your baby. We’ll take your baby for you.”
Many sexual and reproductive health clinics across this country are familiar with this scene. They are picketed by people who believe they have agency over women’s bodies. That they know best what a woman wants, the conditions under which she should have children, the timing of when she should have children.
I recently met with some of the picketers who congregate outside one of our clinics. I asked the organiser why they do what they do; she told me that pregnancy brings on hormones that make women very vulnerable and uncertain. She told me that this is a time when women might not have courage or strength to go through with a pregnancy; if you can get women past this stage they will continue to have their baby and be ok.
While she was very polite and the meeting was cordial, I was shocked by how little agency she believed women have when it comes to deciding to continue a pregnancy or not. It struck me that this was the age old approach of casting women as victims. It plays into the narrative of women as vulnerable, not fully able to know their own mind because of those darn ‘hormones’.
Not every woman who comes through our doors is going through a crisis. It’s true that they’re going through a very difficult and deeply personal experience; but we should trust them with their reproductive autonomy. The only help they need is information, space and for all possible obstacles to be removed so that they can make the decision that’s right for them.
While the picketers and their supporters would argue that they’re being helpful to women, what they’re doing is the complete opposite of help. They are taking up the space that women need, they are questioning the autonomy of women and they are perpetuating the discriminatory view that women do not know their own minds.
A new law has come in to effect in NSW to address the harm that these picketers do. From today, these picketers will not be allowed to run their usual protests within 150 metres of a clinic that provides abortions.
These safe access zones provide free space for women to access a clinic without a stranger questioning their authority over their reproductive decisions. This will stop harassment, attempted intimidation and general meddling and judgement of women accessing a safe, common medical procedure.
NSW now joins the Northern Territory, Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania in providing these safe zones. Western Australia and Queensland are yet to enact these zones but we are hopeful that they will do so soon.
For patients in Western Australia and Queensland, we, like many other clinics, will send text messages pre-warning patients of picketers letting them know to call us if they need help entering the premise. For our staff in these states we tell them to leave their shifts in pairs, just to be careful because some of these picketers can be forceful and intimidating.
These actions place an unfair burden on the very people who are being targeted. They feed into the prevailing narrative that women need to keep themselves safe, rather than society keeping women safe from the damaging acts of others.
The zones may seem like a small thing when it comes to the bigger issue of gender equality and women’s safety, but I firmly believe they send a powerful message to our society; it’s time to back off and let women take control of their lives. These zones provide a safe space and right now, in our community, women could do with more of these safe spaces.
Michelle Thompson is CEO of Marie Stopes Australia. She has spent more than 30 years working in the healthcare industry and she now passionately campaigns for reproductive healthcare and rights. She tweets from @MichelleT_MSA
