A FRINGE political party in Scotland has been labelled “disgusting” after announcing plans to protest outside a sexual health clinic.
The Scottish Family Party, which ran without success in both the 2021 Holyrood elections and 2022 council elections, said it was planning a demonstration outside Sandyford Clinic.
The NHS clinic, in Glasgow, provides specialist sexual health care including vasectomies, abortion, and gender services. It has been the target of anti-abortion activists in recent months, becoming a key battleground in the push to install protest “buffer zones” around such facilities.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon sends firm message to anti-abortion protesters after Sandyford targeted
Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay has proposed a member’s bill that will create neutral zones around sexual health clinics where protest is barred.
Asked during a livestream earlier this week if there were protests outside Sandyford being organised, the Scottish Family Party’s Richard Lucas (below left) said: “We need to do that don’t we? Yes. We’re going to get there soon.”
Niall Fraser (above right), who failed in a bid to become an MSP with George Galloway’s “All For Unity” party in 2021, added: “It has to be done. Every child that walks through the door of the Sandyford in order to get hormones or surgery is a child failed.”
The Scottish Family Party later made clear that their objections to the clinic also include its abortion services (termed “killing unborn children”), and “administering the immoral, vulgar and corrupting sex education resources recommended by the Scottish Government”.
READ MORE: Scottish buffer zones law will be 'most robust' in UK, Scottish Greens' Gillian Mackay says
Green MSP Mackay said that any campaigners targeting Sandyford or other medical facilities were “acting disgracefully”.
She went on: “They are trying to intimidate and harass people, and to deter them from accessing healthcare.
"For any so-called political party to do this is and boast about it online is disgusting. Yet, time and again, the Scottish Family Party has made it clear that there is no low that it won't sink to.
"Nobody should have to endure these cruel attacks on their right to healthcare. They are completely wrong, and my member’s bill will stop them for good."
In response, Lucas accused the Greens of holding “extreme views” and claimed they want to see “babies torn limb from limb just before birth”.
“How odd that some think that the Greens are the good people and we are the bad people,” he added.
The Scottish Family Party further confirmed that they were planning a protest action, but said this would “probably” involve filming a video or “gathering people for a protest outside of the [Sandyford] clinic’s working hours”.
At the SNP’s conference in October, party members voted overwhelmingly to pass a motion which looked to “ensure that national buffer zone legislation is enacted to protect those who are attending reproductive medicine clinics/hospitals offering abortion services”.
The Scottish Government has pledged to support Mackay in her attempts to implement buffer zones after a number of high profile instances of protests – sometimes described as “vigils” by participants.
READ MORE: MPs back abortion buffer zones to ban anti-choice protests outside hospitals
Last month, MPs in Westminster backed proposals to introduce buffer zones around abortion clinics and hospitals in England and Wales.
A buffer zone in that case would apply to an area which is within 150 metres from any part of an abortion clinic, or access point to any building or site that contains an abortion clinic.
The UK Supreme Court is currently considering whether a bill in Northern Ireland which seeks to introduce such buffer zones is "outside the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly because it disproportionately interferes with the rights of persons who wish to express their opposition to the provision of abortion treatment services".
Mackay previously told The National that, depending on the court's decision, it could present a "huge problem" for efforts to introduce such buffer zones in Scotland.
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