Should local authorities be permitted to establish buffer zones around abortion clinics to protect the women entering them from “harassment and intimidation”? A writer once taunted by pro-lifers recently decided to join them in a prayer vigil outside a clinic

As I turned toward the abortion clinic, two women stood up from a low wall nearby. “Don’t do it luv,” they shouted, “You’re taking a life!” One of them shook a large Rosary at me. “You’re taking a life!”
They continued shouting it until I was through the door. The receptionist must have seen the look on my face. “You all right?” she asked.

“Can’t you get rid of them?” I replied.

“We’ve tried, but they’re on public land there. Nothing we can do.” She shrugged and tapped at her computer, checking me in for my abortion appointment. It was just another routine day for her, but for me it was my first encounter with pro-lifers.

If you’d asked me at that point if I thought exclusion zones around abortion clinics would be a good thing, I’d have said, unequivocally, yes. So how did I find myself, many years later, standing with a Rosary in my hands, praying outside an abortion clinic?

I can only think that, in my journey from a young woman who chose a termination to deal with a crisis pregnancy to a pro-life Catholic mum of three, many people must have been praying for me. Maybe those two women outside the clinic that day. It seems to me now that only prayer and the grace of God could explain it.