Family planning advisers in Belfast say they are under siege from anti-abortion protesters in the city and have even been hounded while out shopping.

Heather Low, a veteran counsellor for the Family Planning Association in Northern Ireland (FPA), was accosted by one anti-abortion activist in Marks & Spencer’s central Belfast store.



“The worst thing I suppose that happened in terms of personal harassment was being downtown in Marks & Spencer where I was browsing for, of all things, a pair of slippers,” she said.

“So there was I deciding whether or not if I wanted mules or flip-flops when a voice sounded in my ear right up beside me. It said ‘Are you Heather?’ And when I turned around and said ‘Yes’ this woman was right up into my face saying ‘I know who you are and I know what you are doing. You are up to that dirty business.’

“She recognised me inside the store and went out of her way to follow me around,” Low said.

Anti-abortion protesters hold regular pickets outside the FPA building in the south inner-city of Belfast. CCTV was installed inside the building as a deterrent in case of intrusion.

Low said that for 25 years since the FPA opened its first premises in Belfast’s University Street and now at Shaftesbury Square, the anti-abortion campaigners had picketed their office for four days every week as well as one evening.



The Glasgow-born counselling services director at the Belfast FPA office said over the years the “siege” had seen the anti-abortion protesters learning the patterns of employees or those seeking the advice on offer inside.

“Sometimes familiar voices will ring up our office, claiming to be pregnant and seeking advice. They ask which days we are open to the public and which nights. Sometimes they change their mind about a certain day and choose another. We suspect some of these familiar voices are there to confirm on which days we counsel women on their various options about their options and choices. It has been like an intelligence-gathering operation against us,” Low said.



Protests include huge posters of aborted foetuses; women using the FPA being told they would suffer trauma for “murdering their babies” if they opted for abortions; clients and staff being followed down the street after leaving the office and in one case last year a member of the FPA team being struck on the head with a clipboard.



Last month in a Belfast court an anti-abortion activist with the Precious Life organisation, Moira Brennan from Ballymoney, County Antrim, lost her appeal against the assault conviction, a decision welcomed by the FPA in Northern Ireland.

Protesters have also taken to chalking messages on the ground outside their door about abortion being murder and FPA staff responded each day by washing away the graffiti with soapy water. On one occasion, Low recalled, the picketers took photographs of an FPA employee removing the messages and posted the picture on an anti-abortion Facebook page.



The FPA asked several times for a meeting between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the anti-abortion demonstrators to hammer out an agreement that would set boundaries for protests. On each occasion the protesters refused to attend, Low claimed.

“I would love them to go away but I know in terms of the law and the right to protest they can’t and they won’t,” Low said.