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The consultation was open between May and August 2022, and it received nearly 12,000 responses. Many respondents had very entrenched views, one way or the other. The consultation form asked a series of questions, and it included free-text boxes to enable people to give their opinions and further context around why their opinion was what it was on various measures in the bill. As a result, it took an awful long time to analyse all that data, but one theme that came out of the consultation was that people were very quick to make the whole issue about abortion itself, which is why I have been very clear that, for me, the bill is about access to healthcare services.

There was a real desire on the part of those who were in favour of the bill for a consistent approach to be taken across the country and for action to be taken quickly on any escalation of behaviour in various places.

The consultation was advertised through Parliament and through all the normal ways in which members’ bills are advertised, and the number of responses that we received gives some weight to the view that the consultation was wide.

I will answer that question slightly back to front. One thing that came out strongly through the consultation was the point that, currently, women must be distressed and traumatised before we can take any action. The bill seeks to flip that around and to have a deterrent effect in the first place, which is very similar to the legislation in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales.

When I last spoke to officials in Northern Ireland, they had not had any arrests inside the zones as a result of the legislation. The bill would prevent women from being traumatised in the first place rather than there having to be a reaction afterwards. Sorry—what was the first part of your question?

Existing law deals with criminal activity once it has happened, but—to come back to my earlier point—women have to be traumatised and distressed in the first place. We are seeking to ensure that the deterrent effect is in place so that women do not have to be traumatised as a result of getting healthcare that they are legally entitled to.

No—you are fine.

Thank you, convener. It is unusual to be on this side of the committee’s questioning, but I am delighted to be here because, by passing the bill, the committee and Parliament can make a real difference to the lives of women and send an unequivocal message that access to healthcare is not up for debate.

I know that abortion is an emotive issue. In the Parliament, as in the rest of the country, there are people with diametrically opposed views, and I do not expect that to change. However, the bill is not, and never has been, about abortion. It is about the right and ability of women to access the healthcare that they need, free from fear that they will be met with judgment and shaming, with placards and signs, and with groups of people telling them that they are wrong.

Securing that freedom should matter to everyone, irrespective of their views on abortion. It should matter especially to the committee, which has rightly been fighting over the past three years to understand and dismantle the barriers that prevent people from getting the healthcare that they need, when and where they need it.

In making that argument, I accept that many of the people who participate in anti-abortion activity outside hospitals do not believe that their actions make it harder for women to access healthcare. In fact, they believe that they help women. Without being too blunt, I point out that those beliefs do not change the reality that some women find their activities to be distressing and alarming.

The minister noted the powerful testimony of the witnesses who appeared before the committee in February and, like her, I think that that needs no embellishment. However, unfortunately, those witnesses’ experiences are not unique. In meetings with healthcare providers, in responses to my consultation and in conversations with women, the message is the same: anti-abortion activity can make accessing abortion treatment harder than it should be. At worst, as Professor Sharon Cameron noted, it can mean that women delay treatment, which can increase the risk of complications. Even in less extreme cases, it can increase anxiety at a time when many women are already anxious.

We have probably all gone for a medical procedure and lain awake the night before, wondering whether it will hurt or whether something will go wrong—worrying about what will happen inside the clinic. Imagine fearing what might happen outside the clinic, too. Imagine worrying whether there will be people trying to influence your decision or calling you names. No one should have to endure that.

The anxiety is not just about being judged. It can be about feeling exposed at a time when privacy matters most. Nobody goes for a gallbladder operation and expects strangers to question their choices in the car park. Those women who seek abortion should have the same benefit, because, no matter why they go, they have made a very personal choice.

No matter how much progress has been made, there is still stigma around abortion and, for some women, a real sense of shame. Going at all can take courage, and that difficulty should not be compounded by fear of being identified or exposed. That fear might have an even greater impact in remote or rural areas, where anonymity is often harder to come by at the best of times.

Given all that, abortion should be the very last healthcare service whose recipients we allow to be subjected to unwanted influence or harassment—the very last one, as opposed to the only one.

I will make two further points. First, I have been told that the bill is not necessary. I wish with all my heart that it was not. However, the committee would not have heard the evidence that it has heard in the past few weeks if existing law was sufficient. There is no current solution that offers consistent protection and that does not require women to experience harm before action is taken.

Secondly, I am not at all cavalier about the rights to freedom of expression, religion and assembly. I would never vote for a bill that threatened them, never mind championing it through Parliament.

I am confident in the work that we have done to ensure that the right balance has been struck by the bill. I will happily say more on that—I am sure that you will ask me to.

In essence, I think that it is proportionate to ensure that, for 200m from the grounds of only 30 premises in the whole of Scotland, women cannot be targeted for accessing healthcare to which they are legally entitled.

The bill would not stop someone making a complaint. The police would attend and would take a view on the behaviour that was happening and the impact that it could have on those who were accessing abortion services. Although that individual clinician could make a complaint, such people are not the target of the bill. It would depend on what else was going on in that situation and whether what was going on was influencing those who were accessing abortion services.

To use your example of a haematology clinician, if there was someone outside with a banner similar to the ones that we see at the moment, the clinician could make a complaint, but the police could still come and say that the protest would have an effect on people who were accessing services and that they were within a safe access zone. Therefore, it could be captured, but much will depend on the scenario that is in front of the police when they attend.

Earlier, the minister went through all the stages and all the engagement that we have gone through when making the bill. One of the major differences is the 200m distance. Having had a look at the different ways in which services are delivered in Scotland versus in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, where there are generally standalone clinics, we saw that the hospital sites that we are dealing with are much bigger and have a greater number of people accessing them. Therefore, potentially, a much greater number of people could experience the protests.

As the minister said, we also had a look at how people make their way to their appointments, such as through entrances from car parks or from bus stops, where influence could be exerted to undermine the bill even although people are away from the front door.

We have gone as far as we can in terms of the distance without crossing the line into excluding people more widely than is necessary. Given that our situation is different to that of Northern Ireland, England and Wales, we have got the balance right for the protected features that we have looked at—ensuring that, outside of that 200m distance around 30 premises in Scotland, people can still make known their views on abortion.

Yes.

Yes.

Private property is included in the zones in England and Wales. I think that we have struck the right balance in this bill. The issue is not one that we have come across so far in testimony, but there could be an undermining effect if private property was not covered, as you have heard from other witnesses. As I have said, I believe that we have struck the right balance in protecting a person’s right to private conversations and their right to a private life in their own home, while not allowing them to use their property to attempt to influence someone else’s decision or to undermine the effect that we are trying to have with the bill.