Bishop John Sherrington, lead bishop on life issues for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has reiterated that the Catholic Church “condemns all harassment and intimidation of women”. But he says the safe access zone legislation is “unnecessary and disproportionate” and amounts to discrimination against people of faith.

The Church should be very wary about being dragged into an imported version of American culture wars. There is a reasonable case to be made against the present abortion law, including the repeated claim made for instance by Labour’s equalities minister Jess Phillips, welcoming the buffer zone legislation, that “the right to access abortion services is a fundamental right for women in this country”. There is no such right to abortion in British law, only a carefully qualified balance, struck by two medical practitioners, between the health of the pregnant woman and the regrettable sacrifice of the life of a foetus.

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