ABSTRACT

This chapter highlights the disparity between the management and governance of public space and transgressions in that space. The chapter is based on data collected for a research project on attitudes towards and living with difference. The data presented here was collected for a specific part of the project looking at how groups in conflict, with competing rights, negotiate each other's presence in different spaces, specifically in urban contexts. Demonstrating an ethic of care, Abort67 implies that its group is the only one that cares enough to show people the truth of the abortion process, taking the moral high ground through empathetic approaches. Debates regarding abortion protest and its place in the public sphere in the UK have previously focused on campaigns in the political arena, led by the Pro-Life Alliance. Whilst activism seeks to challenge the social and political order, individuals who are part of such groups do indeed have rights to the city.