A Sydney Catholic bishop is calling for safe access zones to be enforced around churches, connecting the idea to a proposal endorsed by the NSW Upper House this week to give women seeking an abortion protection from pro-life protestors.

Bishop of Broken Bay Peter Comensoli said he had written to politicians suggesting the same safe zones should be placed around churches, citing loud protests outside St Mary's Cathedral during the Day of the Unborn Child mass last year.

The NSW Upper House on Thursday passed a bill proposing a 150-metre exclusion zone around reproductive health clinics in an attempt to stop patients being harassed or intimidated by anti-abortion protestors and so-called "sidewalk counsellors".

Bishop Comensoli said he did not support the bill generally, but "if they're determined to have a safety zone, why not a safety zone around any activities that could be personally intimidating for those involved".

The bill would protect women from protestors with a 150m radius of the clinics. ( ABC News )

"Some people quite legitimately feel very uncomfortable with the people who stand near reproductive centres," Bishop Comensoli told the ABC.

"It's right that people who might be going to seek a termination could be very vulnerable … I would very much want to acknowledge that.

"But people can be vulnerable going to church too, particularly if there's people out the front with loud speakers belittling their point of view.

"They might be there praying, hoping to get pregnant, they might have lost a child … they might be there praying for people who are thinking about abortion … [and] ordinary people are then abused, intimidated and spoken to quite violently."

Bishop Comensoli raised the issue on social media in the lead up to the bill being passed in the Upper House, posting a video of pro-choice protestors outside St Mary's.

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'No amendments'

Labor MP Penny Sharpe and Nationals MP Trevor Khan, who co-sponsored the bill together, said they would not support any amendments.

"The bill that we've put forward is dealing with a very specific set of circumstances," Ms Sharpe said.

She said people should not be disturbed when they were in church and described last year's protest outside St Mary's as an "unfortunate incident".

"But I don't think it is an ongoing issue, I don't think people are directly targeted," she said.

Mr Khan said the protests outside St Mary's only inflamed the issue.

"But what we have in the case of young vulnerable women outside reproductive centres is a persistent and intrusive course of conduct week in, week out," he said.

"I really struggle with equating the circumstances that a woman faces [when seeking a termination], with the person who is [attending] a church service.

"That shows, quite frankly, a lack of empathy and insight."

Anglican priest says idea has merit

Father Rod Bower's church has been targeted twice by right wing extremists ( Supplied )

Anglican priest Father Rod Bower, whose church at Gosford on the Central Coast has been targeted by right wing extremists as recently as last week, said the bishop's idea had merit.

While there are some legal provisions protecting clergy from fear and intimidation, he said it was not enough.

"I'm not sure I would want to equate a person worshipping with a woman entering a medical facility for the purpose of a termination, they are different degrees of things," he said.

"But they both involve vulnerable people.

"What we observed on Saturday night [during the incident with the extremists] is when people are in the context of prayer and worship they are in a particularly vulnerable state, [your] defences are down when you're trying to open up yourself to your God.

"It traumatises you in a deeper way than it may do when you're just walking down the street. That's my personal experience of that.

"The exclusion zone idea is one that has merit because it allows the protestors to have their say but it also protects people from intimidation."

The bill is set to be debated by the NSW Lower House.