On a quiet street in south Manchester, a war is being waged.

The Marie Stopes clinic, in Fallowfield, has offered safe and legal abortions for more than a decade.

Inside the building are staff who want to provide a safe haven for women.

Outside is an uninvited welcoming committee of 'pro-life' protestors. They come from as far away as Glasgow to wait, and frustrate the work of the women inside.

Some do it politely, praying in the street before quietly going home. Others are menacing.

Staff have become used to shrieks of 'murderer', promises of judgement in hell, pushing and shoving, chilling gestures like a finger run across the throat, or finding their tyres popped with nails.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

It's the patients who the protesters are really there for though.

A woman, seen walking to the door, will be faced with judgemental placards, brought by the pro-lifers.

Some will approach, question and challenge her about the decision she has summoned up the courage to make.

She might even be confronted by a protester breastfeeding her baby in a pointed way. Or a rubber doll, meant to represent a foetus.

At a time when they are struggling with one of the most difficult decisions of their life, women using the clinic have this gauntlet to run, one designed to inspire, or reinforce guilt.

The small, but persistent number who gather outside the clinic each week claim they are offering women the chance to ‘save a life’.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Their numbers are about to swell.

On Wednesday campaigners from across the country are expected to descend on Fallowfield for the start of a 40-day protest.

The internationally coordinated campaign - led by Texas-based prayer group '40 Days for Life' - aims to 'end abortion locally through prayer and fasting, community outreach, and a peaceful all-day vigil in front of abortion businesses'.

At the same time the council have launched an eight-week consultation about a proposed ‘buffer zone’ outside the clinic, enforced by a Public Space Protection Order.

It's designed to keep away people like the smiling woman who, seeing a lone woman walking up to the clinic, approached the M.E.N. with a small blue cardboard flyer, on a Saturday morning in August.

“Would you like a leaflet?” she says, handing over a folded document that says 'Ask to see the ultrasound scan', along with a picture - '10 week old unborn baby alive in the womb'.

“You’re going into the clinic? For an abortion?”, she says.

Told that we are in fact here to report on the buffer zone proposal and speak to staff campaigners, she starts to walk away.

“Don’t talk to me,” she says.

“Bluffers the lot of them,” she says, of the plan to enforce an exclusion zone, while clutching her rosary beads.

“Don’t talk to me, I’m praying. You can see, I’m praying.”

She returns to her picnic chair opposite the clinic.

"Some are nicer than others," Lynn Bradley, says of the protesters.

The healthcare support worker has been at the clinic for eight years and remembers them being there the whole time.

"There's one young man who stands and says prayers and leaves", she adds.

"The other end of the scale is two chaps who shout real verbal abuse.

"One man came in here with his partner and he had a rubber doll in his hand.

He said that the people outside had told him to keep it because it was 'a souvenir of my baby I'm losing today'."

Another pro-life campaigner chased, 'grabbed and pushed' Lynn in the back, when she first starting working there, before running her finger, menacingly across her neck.

"I'm used to them now," Lynn adds. "They don't bother me but it's very different for the ladies. These people don't know a woman's circumstances.

"Saying they're going to go to the devil and giving them dolls. It's scary."

Last year Ealing Council made history by imposing a 100-metre buffer zone banning activists from protesting or 'harassing' women outside the town’s Marie Stopes abortion clinic.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Jessica Jones, a nurse at the Fallowfield clinic, hopes a similar scheme here in Manchester will protect the women who use the facility.

She too has got used to 'the singing, leaflets, banners, grotesque props shoved in your face, being called a murderer and told I’m going to hell.'

But, like all the staff, it's the patients she worries for most.

"Why are we allowing vulnerable women to be victimised?”, she says.

“People are being met at the door with these banners and made to feel awful about themselves about using a legal service."

Some women who use the service are victims of domestic violence, trafficking or rape, Jess tells us.

This isn't an argument that the two men who sit on deckchairs opposite the clinic, surrounded by signs with Bible quotations, will accept.

They hand over a white flyer which has the words: 'You shall not murder' written in bold lettering. On the back is a blurb about abortion being 'the sin of murder'.

The two men insist they don't harass or inimidate. But they admit they would seek to persuade anyone happy to engage with them.

One of the pair, the Reverend Stephen Holland, a minister at Westhoughton Evangelical Church, argues that cases of pregnancy by rape, or incest are 'very very rare' but he would still advise keeping a baby conceived in this way.

His companion, Reverend James R Hamilton, comes from Glasgow to protest 'most weeks'.

“People talk about women’s rights. Nobody has a right to take a life", he says. "Life is God given. It’s a parent’s responsibility to care for and raise that child. Life is not ours to take.

“Having an abortion won’t take away the horror of rape.”

He wears a bodycam so he can record all interactions that take place on this quiet little semi-residential street.

“I’m not here to condemn people, it’s the word of God that condemns people", he says. "We have the womenfolk coming out sad and ill and what we hope is that they would come to see that maybe what they are doing is wrong in the eyes of God."

A woman clad in a pink tabard also films goings-on on the street.

The ‘Sister Supporter’ is one of several who come to the clinic to hold a ‘counter presence’.

She claims that pro-life protesters are here every Saturday 'praying and trying to get people to take their leaflets'.

“They are trying to stop people coming in," she says.

“All we say is ‘you don’t have to take their flyer and if you want to talk you can talk to us’.”

“It’s usually a priest and a couple of people. There were four last week saying 'hail Marys'.

“The Sister Supporters ethos is to not engage with them. We don’t get into arguments, we just hold up the sign, we don’t intervene.

(Image: PA)

“If something does happen we call police on 101 to add to the evidence for the buffer zone.

“I was really surprised that it happens in this country. It’s something you think of happening in America but not here.

"It’s intimidating if you get out of your car as a young woman to be confronted by this. It’s nobody else’s business what you do with your own body."

Giving women choice, and ownership over their own lives and bodies, protecting them from the shame, indignity and danger of the backstreet abortions of old, motivates Marie Stopes staff like Jessica Jones, who is immensely proud of the work she does at the Fallowfield clinic.

“I think our service here is empowering and necessary as part of a society that is moving towards equality and women’s rights,” she says.

“We are taking small but vital steps towards women being able to take ownership of their bodies, lives and choices so they can make their own lifestyle decisions for themselves.

“If a woman decides that’s not the journey she wants to take she should be able to have that choice.”

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Jess says many of the women who come to the clinic are not sure about having an abortion and staff will not influence their decision either way.

“Our job is to support them,” she says.

Those who do decide to go ahead are offered counselling and support both pre-and post abortion.

For Manchester Withington MP Jeff Smith, who visited the clinic back in August, hearing reports about protests from staff has been ‘shocking and revealing’.

“Marie Stopes are providing healthcare to which women are legally entitled,” he says.

“Staff and service users should not be being subjected to confrontational and disturbing behaviour, which only serves to cause unnecessary trauma and distress at a vulnerable time."

He says the issue needs 'a national solution' and is urging the government to introduce legislation to prevent 'unlawful harassment' and protect the safety of women and healthcare professionals.

“A solution is needed that balances the right to protest with protecting the users and staff of the clinic from harassment,” he says.

(Image: mirrorpix)

The Marie Stopes charity provides treatments including abortion services, vasectomies and counselling - the vast majority of which are funded by the NHS.

There are nine stand-alone clinics across the country which have all been the targets of protest groups such as 40 Days for Life.

Pro-life campaigners, who always deny harassing people, say they themselves have come under fire.

Police were called to the area back in March when a passer-by allegedly stopped to confront three pro-life protesters and sent their deck chair and leaflets flying.

But the council say they have received numerous reports of 'anti-social behaviours associated with groups and individuals expressing approval or disapproval of people accessing abortion services' by protesting or holding vigils opposite the clinic.

“People turn up here in tears", Shelley Doherty, who works on reception at the Fallowfield clinic, says.

"The other Saturday a mum came to the front door and said ‘my daughter can’t walk to the front door because of these people’.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“Some people see them there and just leave and walk home. The choice goes out of the window for them.

“Every single walk of life comes here. Women and children all walk through these doors.”

Shelley describes the tactics of some pro-life protectors as ‘disgusting’.

She describes one incident when a man who had come to the clinic to support his partner was presented with a small rubber foetus-like doll by protesters.

“It’s awful for the ladies and their families and friends," she says. “A lot of people just don’t expect it.

“We have become hardened to it. It’s part of the job. But it shouldn't happen.

“During 40 Days for Life a few years ago a guy turned up in a car parked outside the front of the building with all his windows down blaring music about Jesus Christ, handing out horrible paraphernalia. Clients were scared to come in because of him.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“The next week he brought his mates and they were two massive burly gents with banners and megaphones wearing A-boards and chanting about murder and passages from the bible. They were parading up and down the whole street.

“We’ve also had a woman who would breastfeed her brand new baby outside. She was here with her children.

“They tell people to make sure they get a copy of the scan. And tell them they don’t have to do it. A woman might just be here to talk about contraception.

“They will say things like ‘we have saved ten babies today’. It’s guilt tactics.”

The council consultation will ask people in the area for their opinion on whether a PSPO should be implemented or not.

Residents can add their thoughts here .