Victoria (Australia) Parliament Member Fiona Patten’s office reached out to me about a new initiative relating to street harassment (read about what Patten did in April). Her Senior Electorate Officer Nevena Spirovska told me:
“In Melbourne, and around the world, women seeking fertility treatments are often harassed as they try to access services that are legally performed at the clinics. The street harassment can take the form of verbal abuse, blocking entrance to the clinic, praying or attempting to offer “curb-side counselling” to women, their families and workers – in one instance, a security officer at a Melbourne fertility clinic was shot dead by a religious fanatic.
Fiona Patten has now introduced a Bill in Victorian Parliament that will create a Safe Access Zones of 150m around fertility clinics. Protestors can still be present and have the freedom to assemble, just as long as they do not enter the Safe Access Area [or buffer zones].”
You can read more in this article.
This is an important and under-discussed form of street harassment (our blog correspondents have written about it in the USA and the UK) and I hope she is successful in getting the bill passed!
