(Mercator) From October 31, abortion clinics in the United Kingdom will be protected against protesters by 150-metre “safe access buffer zones”.
Anyone convicted doing “anything that intentionally or recklessly influences someone’s decision to use abortion services, obstructs them, or causes harassment or distress to someone using or working at these premises” will face an unlimited fine.
Buffer zones are already in place in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Public Order Act 2023, which passed in Parliament last year, has now established them in England and Wales. Some local authorities had already implemented them.
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Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips declared back in September:
The right to access abortion services is a fundamental right for women in this country, and no one should feel unsafe when they seek to access this.
We will not sit back and tolerate harassment, abuse and intimidation as people exercise their legal right to healthcare, which is why we have fast-tracked this measure to get it up and running without further delay.
For too long abortion clinics have been without these vital protections, and this government is determined to do all we can do to make this country a safer place for women.
This is complete rubbish. I watched a head-to-head on GB News the other day between Madeleine Page, director of the Alliance of Pro-Life Students, and a pro-choice activist. A few images of pro-life protesters appeared. They were not in any way violent. None showed evidence of “harassment”; rather, they featured mostly elderly individuals silently praying and/or displaying signs offering help.
The only one showing noisy protest was of a pro-abortion demonstration. All the abortion centres have security cameras, and if there was any evidence of harassment, we can be sure that rather than this new law being shrouded in obscurity it would be plastered all over the mainstream media.
As pointed out during the GB News debate, many women have gone on to have their babies thanks to the long-term help provided by the vigils, all for no charge. If abortion advocates were really “pro-choice” they would support the offer of genuine, positive choice. Instead, their “choice” consists of only one choice.
Now, in this country, we have a situation where we are not allowed to flush a baby wipe down the toilet but we can flush a baby and where killing the unborn is presented by supporters as a “healthcare” choice, the equivalent of removing a diseased appendix, although the aim is to kill, not to cure, to facilitate the death of a unique, separate human being.
Tweet This: Now, in this country, we have a situation where we are not allowed to flush a baby wipe down the toilet but we can flush a baby.
As Michael Robinson, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, commented: “This chilling and Orwellian measure is being introduced for ideological reasons. It will be used by aggressive secularist zealots to try and shut down legitimate peaceful vigils and control religious activity, including silent prayer.”
There is little doubt that English police will be vigorously enforcing these measures. Last month Afghanistan veteran Adam Smith-Connor was found guilty of praying silently for his dead son outside an abortion clinic in the English town of Bournemouth. The judge gave him a two-year conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £9,000 (US$11,700) in legal costs. According to Alliance Defending Freedom UK, it “marked the first time in modern British history that a citizen has been criminalised on the basis of his thoughts.”
Sadly, even some of those committed to the right of free speech have shown little sign of supporting the right to silent prayer, which has been prosecuted – one might say persecuted – even before this measure passed into law, seriously compromising the right to free expression of each one of us.
In an unprecedented travesty of British justice, this new law requires no evidence of wrongdoing; it relies on the suppression not just of free speech but of that which cannot even be subjectively judged: private thoughts and private prayers.
It has been argued that silent prayer is not being banned, as long as it does not take place near an abortion centre – and yet these are the very places that help is most needed, where distressed, undecided and desperate pregnant women most need it. One thing is sure: they will get no help and no choice from the purveyors of “choice” and lethal “healthcare”.
As to the innocent victims in all this, these “protection” or “safe access buffer zones” will be the most dangerous places of all, offering no protection and no safety and, needless to say, no choice. Thanks to this most draconian and ill-judged legislation, they won’t even have a prayer.
Editor's note: This article was published by Mercator and is reprinted with permission.
