End the shame game

As the Nursing and Midwifery Council notes, caring for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is a demanding yet rewarding area of nursing. Nurses have a professional responsibility to act with integrity and ensure that their personal views do not influence the care of their patient or client.

For those of us who work in this area, a familiar feature is protesters congregating outside clinics, precisely to impose their personal views on pregnant women as they enter a centre. Creating a safe space – or buffer zone – outside clinics, as urged by Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper, would help to ensure women can access this much-needed service in privacy and dignity.

In recent years, we have seen an increase in this protest activity. These people position themselves outside clinics, sometimes with cameras strapped around their necks or bearing banners with pictures