The importance of safe zones

Sir, – Kitty Holland gives a salutary reminder of how difficult it can be for Irish women to access abortion safely (“Anti-abortion protesters outside medical facilities should face prison sentences, rights watchdog says”, News, October 6th).

Only one in 10 GPs are providing referral services. Hostile and threatening behaviour by anti-abortion zealots outside buildings where information about entirely legal services can be accessed must be enormously distressing.

Government has already approved a General Scheme to “ensure safe access” to women. Now the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has made a submission urging the passing of legislation, urging that those who break these safe zones be liable to sentences of up to two years in prison. This might encourage those who believe they own the right to impose their own moral duty on others to break any such law and achieve their own peculiar sort of martyrdom.

The battle to allow freedom of choice for women was a long and hard one. Women who require information and/or abortions deserve the protection of the State, not verbal attacks by those who believe they hold a different and superior kind of morality. – Yours, etc,