A proposal to create safety zones around abortion zones is to go back to the drawing board.

Ralph Peake (Douglas North) had sought to introduce a new clause to the Abortion Reform Bill this morning, but after hearing concerns about some of wording, he agreed to withdraw it and come back with some of the sections re-worded.

Concerns were raised that some of the provisions of his clause could lead to innocent people inadvertently breaking the law.

However, in response to Chris Robertshaw (Douglas East) questioning whether there was actually any need for the safety zones, a number of MHKs said the actions of militant pro-life group Abort67 and its indication it will continue with protests after abortion laws are changed, demonstrated there was such a need.

Mr Peake’s proposed new clause aimed to create ’access zones’ for hospitals and other premises where abortion services could be provided and also create similar zones around the homes of medical practitioners providing the served or the surgeries they work at.

These zones would have restrictions that would prevent anti-abortion protests or ’engagement in pavement interference’. It would also ban people from repeatedly or continuously observing or lingering in the area or harassing anyone.

It proposed a maximum penalty of 12 months’ custody.

But there was concern some of the definitions were not specific enough and that there could be unintended consequences of certain provisions. After legislative drafter Howard Connell suggested a number of concerns could be addressed by changes to the wording, Mr Peake decided to go back to the drawing board and will bring forward a new version at a later sitting.

Mr Robertshaw had also questioned whether the clause would find itself in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights over freedom of speech, but legislative drafter Howard Connell said he was confident that would not be a problem because that right had to be balanced against other rights.

There was a terse exchange between Mr Robertshaw and his constituency colleague Clare Bettison (Douglas East) after she rejected his argument that people could inadvertently contravene the law by not realising they were in a zone where protests were prohibited.

He branded as ’laughable’ her assertion that other exclusion zones, such as no-fly zones for drones, or bail restrictions imposed by a court on a defendant, worked because it was the responsibility of the person to ensure they were not contravening rules.

She hit back, stating: ’Why shouldn’t those who wish to protest, which is a relatively small number, be expected to familiarise themselves with the locations where this is prohibited? I don’t think that is unreasonable.’

A number of other MHKs cried ’hear, hear’ in support.