The United Kingdom may have criminalized freedom of speech, but one pro-Life activist, arrested for praying, did not let her government’s thought police bully her into silence.
“Prayer isn’t a crime. Neither is standing,” proclaimed March for Life UK’s co-director, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, after receiving £13,000 (about $17,000 USD) in compensation from West Midlands Police Department.
Police had initially told her “engaging in prayer” is “the offense” that warranted six officers to arrest her outside a Birmingham abortion clinic in 2022, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom. She was charged with "protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users” in what the UK calls a “buffer zone.”
These are areas drawn out by local authorities that prohibit any expression of pro-life views within the radius of an abortion clinic. Thanks to the thought-overlords dominating the UK’s parliament, “buffer zones” are about to become the law of the land, encompassing both England and Wales, according to the BBC.
This new, ambiguous legislation means Christians and pro-lifers will soon be barred from all forms of “influencing” (praying…thinking…sneezing…existing?) anywhere within 492 feet of a clinic.
The only reason authorities dropped their charges against Vaughan-Spruce is because they found there wasn't enough evidence she had breached the speech code. After all, she was merely standing “silently,” which is still apparently legal despite other pro-lifers currently facing jail time for doing the same thing.
At least for now, Vaughan-Spruce is a free woman.
“There is no place for Orwell’s ‘thought police’ in 21st Century Britain,” Vaughan-Spruce stated in a response published by the ADF. She lauded the advocacy group’s U.K. branch for providing her legal support.
"I was there simply to pray for women facing very difficult situations and decisions,” she added.
But the UK’s Home Office calls this “harassment and intimidation” to women “exercising their legal right to access abortion services.” This follows their recently announced plans to brand any citizen who expresses “misogynistic” beliefs as a terrorist. By that, it appears they mean pro-life women.
Don’t count on them jailing the migrant rapists or machete-wielding Islamists any time soon.
