Silent Prayer in the UK is Legal!

— even within abortion buffer-zones!

In February this year, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, was acquitted of all criminal charges related to her praying silently in a “protest exclusion” buffer-zone established by the Birmingham city council. She was charged with breaking a Public Space Protection Order, namely with “protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users.” 

In a similar case, Fr. Sean Gough also had his charges dropped. Fr. Gough had also been holding a sign saying “praying for free speech” and his car parked inside the exclusion zone had an “Unborn Lives Matter”  bumper-sticker.

The British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman just announced that silent prayer near abortion clinics is not a crime. She has confirmed this in writing to every police force in the UK, adding: “holding lawful opinions, even if those opinions may offend others, is not a criminal offence”. 

Thankfully, Braverman’s announcement clarifies the March legislation which establishes a 500-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics within which protesters cannot undertake any activity to influence “any person’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services.”

(The Home Secretary went further and admonished the Thought Police Police “...against recent police behaviors such as “taking the knee” during Black Lives Matter protests, embracing “highly contested ideologies” such as gender extremism and critical race theory, and “failing to take action” of threats of violence made by transgender activists against women.")

The whole concept of what happened to Isabel Vaughan-Spruce and Fr. Gough should be chilling to all reasonable people — The Thought Police comes straight out of George Orwell’s 1984.

Kevin Hay

You can follow Kevin on X (Twitter) @kevinhay77