Pro-life campaigners will picket outside a hospital during Lent to protest against terminations being carried out on the NHS.

Members of the 40 Days For Life group will stage a vigil outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Govan, Glasgow, from February 10 until March 20.

The group said it has permission from both the hospital and Police Scotland and that picketers would not harass any individuals entering or leaving the hospital. Similar pickets will take place at hospitals around the world.

A statement from the group read: "From February 10 to March 20, our community will take part in 40 Days for Life, a ground-breaking, coordinated international mobilisation.

"We pray that, with God’s help, this will mark the beginning of the end of abortion in our city and beyond."

The movement was founded in the US in 2005 and describes itself as "a community-based campaign that takes a determined, peaceful approach to showing local communities the consequences of abortion in their own neighbourhoods, for their own friends and families".

The group claims to "cooperate with God in the carrying out of His plan for the end of abortion" using a three-point programme of prayer and fasting, constant vigil and community outreach.

Ross Colquhoun, 40 Days For Life's international outreach director, said he thought the Glasgow vigil "could be one of the strongest campaigns we've had in the UK".

Pro-choice groups opposed to the vigil say the protesters could cause distress to women attending the hospital's gynaecological unit. A petition hosted on change.org to revoke the group's permission to protest has been signed by almost 5000 people.

The petition reads: "The unit they are targeting offers a full range of gynaecological services and these protests could cause distress not only to women in need of the abortion services (at a time of emotional distress and or vulnerability) but also staff and those accessing other services in the hospital.

"As stated by a British Pregnancy Advisory Service spokeswoman, the reality is women find running the gauntlet of anti-abortion activists intimidating.

"A group of strangers 'witnessing' a woman as she accesses a confidential NHS service is a significant invasion of privacy.

"Anti-abortion groups are free to hold their vigils anywhere else. They should leave individual women who want to seek advice and care in privacy and dignity alone."