ANTI abortion campaigners pledged yesterday they would picket three British abortion clinics which will offer 10 minute lunch hour terminations for less than £300.
Amid mounting criticism over the service, to be available at Marie Stopes International clinics in London, Leeds and Manchester, anti abortion campaigners plan to hold prayer vigils and to confront pregnant women to persuade them to change their minds.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said it would also leaflet every British household in protest, while Life said it planned to challenge the charitable status of the clinics.
"This is the ultimate in a fast economy, fast food and now fast abortion. I think it is frightening. These centres will increase the rate of destruction and must be stopped. How can abortion clinics have charitable status when they are part of a huge money making industry?" asked a spokeswoman for Life.
The 10 minute service will be available from next month to women less than 12 weeks pregnant. The woman will still need a form signed by two doctors agreeing that there is a risk to her physical or mental health or to the baby's wellbeing.
Church leaders have denounced the service as appalling. Cardinal Basil Hume, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the clinics were trivialising decisions about human life and death. "Society must reflect upon the inhumanity of conniving in what appears to be a walkin/walk out' abortion service."
However, Dr Tim 13 lack, the chief executive of Marie Stopes International, described the 10 minute terminations as "a quantum leap in service delivery" and stressed that the procedure was "very much quicker and very much less traumatic".
He added that he had "no problems at all" in marketing the service as being as simple as a visit to the dentist for a filling.