Police in Scotland have made the first arrest of a protester who allegedly breached an exclusion zone around an abortion clinic, days after the US vice-president, JD Vance, spread inaccurate claims about Scotland’s rules.
The act, Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) 2024, passed by the Scottish parliament in June last year, prohibits protests against abortion within a 200-metre (650ft) area around a hospital or clinic which provides abortion services.
Scottish politicians said the protesters had been “emboldened” by Vance’s factually inaccurate claim last week that people who lived within an exclusion zone were banned from praying at home.
The Daily Record newspaper reported that 40 Days for Life activists plan to hold daily demonstrations between 5 March and 13 April outside the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Glasgow on Hardgate Road, where there is an abortion clinic.
Gillian Mackay, a Scottish Green party MSP who championed the legislation, said: “It’s no coincidence that this has happened so soon after JD Vance and his supporters have spread toxic misinformation about Scotland.
