By JAMAL BEN HADDOU

Pro-life groups will continue protesting outside abortion clinics until new laws banning the action come into effect next year.

The Safe Access Bill, an amendment to the  Public Health and Wellbeing Act,  passed the Victorian Legislative Council last week with an overwhelming majority of 69 votes to 13.

The Bill, drafted by Sex Party president Fiona Patten and adopted by the Labor Party, bans protesting within 150m of abortion clinics in Victoria. This includes a ban on communicating or distributing any information related to reproductive health.

One of the most active protest groups in Melbourne, the Helpers of God's Precious Infants,  said it would continue to protest, pray and distribute brochures outside the East Melbourne fertility clinic six days a week while they could.

The group has protested continuously at the fertility clinic for 20 years. The new law means anyone caught breaching  the 150m zone could face fines or jail time for repeat offences.

Ms Patten said safe access zones needed to be enforced to ensure women had secure access to health services.

“Women are consistently harassed and intimidated when they are going into abortion clinics. Protesters do things like call the women baby-killers and they’ll hand them pictures of foetuses of say ‘please don’t kill your baby’ so it’s very intimidating,” Ms Patten said.

Right To Life executive officer Dr Katrina Haller said The God’s Helpers of Precious Infants offered alternative assistance to pregnant women.

“They do whatever they can to help women proceed with their pregnancy and give birth. They offer financial help, accommodation and help with visa problems. They simply offer the women something that the clinic doesn’t,” Dr Haller said.

Ms Patten said such help was not wanted or needed by most women.

“If someone wants help they ask for it. They do not need these strangers coming up to them offering their opinion on a decision a women has made about her own body,” Ms Patten said.

Despite this, Ms Patten said she encouraged the group to protest outside Parliament.

“They have every right to protest, in fact they protests outside Parliament every day that Parliament is sitting and I think that is entirely appropriate. If they oppose the abortion laws then they should be lobbying politicians to change the abortion laws, not harassing young women,” she said.

Ms Haller said such claims were false and prevented protestors from voicing their concerns and helping the women.

“Women are not being harassed, they not being intimidated. That is a scandalous, defamatory lie that Fiona Patten is spreading. The helpers offer them help, whether that’s financial assistance or accommodation,” she said.

Similar laws already exist in Tasmania and the ACT with protest-free exclusion zones outside reproductive health services. Ms Patten said the legislation was long overdue in Victoria.

The same clinic was the site of a shooting which left a security guard dead in 2001. The clinic hires security throughout the week to escort women in and out of the facility.