YouTube video of confrontation outside London clinic goes viral as activist who filmed it faces threat of legal action

A video in which protesters picketing a London abortion clinic are challenged by a pregnant passerby has gone viral after being posted on YouTube.

The incident, involving protesters from the controversial Abort 67 group, was filmed by the commentator and pro-choice activist Sunny Hundal and had been watched nearly 2m times by Friday afternoon.

Hundal said he had been threatened with legal action by one of the protesters, who was brandishing his own camera and was accused of filming women coming and going from the clinic.

After Hundal himself confronted the protesters, who have been heavily criticised for displaying graphic imagery outside abortion clinics, an unnamed woman who had been listening nearby told the demonstrators: “You are wrong in what you’re doing”.

“You don’t know why people are doing what they’re doing, but you want to be out here judging and then filming,” she told a protester with a camera mounted on his chest.

Gesturing to one of the graphic banners displayed by Abort 67, she said: “I think this is so wrong on so many levels”.

She then turned to another protester, who had apparently said that she had had an abortion, and told her: “When you had your abortion it was your choice, so to be standing out here and making other women feel guilty is so wrong”.

Abort 67 said its protesters used cameras in order to have evidence if they are accused of bullying or harassment. A spokesman said that no one was ever “knowingly/intentionally” filmed going into a clinic: “The accusation sounds even more ridiculous considering the clinic isn’t even open the day we are outside it. Again, this is just a smokescreen to distract from having to defend what abortion does to a tiny human being.

“The YouTube video by Sunny Hundal which reveals the gentle nature by which we hold our displays serves to emphasise that abortion is indefensible. Pro-aborts like Sunny can’t defend killing small human beings so he tries (in vain) to shame our volunteers for trying to defend the unborn child.”

Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said last month that it had started calling for “buffer zones” or “safe havens” around clinics, because women had said they felt intimidated by the protesters.

“We have previously contacted the churches who support the people who gather outside clinics and asked them to reconsider their stance – but to no avail; in repeated meetings with police around the country officers have told us they do not have the powers to tackle the problems these people cause; and attempts to use public order legislation have failed,” she said.