The following report is by the Catholic Herald:
Police in Birmingham have charged a Catholic woman with four counts of violating an abortion clinic “buffer zone” after she admitted that she might have been praying silently while standing outside.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested, searched and held in custody after she told officers that she might have said some silent prayers close to the British Pregnancy Advisory Services Robert Clinic in Kings Norton.
She carried no rosary beads or signs but was photographed outside the premises by an onlooker and reported to the police.
Officers asked the 45-year-old from Malvern, Worcestershire, if the photographs showed her praying outside the clinic and she admitted that she might have been praying silently in her mind, but also thinking about her lunch and other trivial things.
She is now due to appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on February 2 charged with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order.
Bail conditions include a requirement that Ms Vaughan Spruce, the director of the UK March for Life and a pregnancy counsellor, desists from taking part in public prayer even beyond the limits of the exclusion zone.
Ms Vaughan-Spruce said:
It’s abhorrently wrong that I was arrested, brought into cells, searched and humiliated by police simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind.
Censorship zone legislation purports to ban harassment, which is already illegal and obviously justifiable as nobody should be subject to harassment.
But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful – I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind.
Nobody should be criminalised for thinking, for praying, in a public space in the UK.
She added:
I have devoted much of my life to supporting women in crisis pregnancies with everything that they need to make an empowered choice for motherhood.
I am also involved in supporting women who have had abortions and are struggling with the consequences of it.
I’ve grown close to many of the women I’ve been able to support over the years, and it breaks my heart to know that so many more go through this every day.
My faith is a central part of who I am, so sometimes I’ll stand or walk near an abortion facility and pray about this issue.
This is something I’ve done pretty much every week for around the last 20 years of my life. I pray for my friends who have experienced abortion, and for the women who are thinking about going through it themselves.
The exclusion zone was introduced by Birmingham City Council on September 7 to prohibit anyone “engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval” of abortion in proximity to the clinic, including through “verbal or written means, prayer or counselling”.
The council argued that the measure was necessary to ensure “people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation”.
A West Midlands Police spokesperson confirmed that Miss Vaughan-Spruce was arrested on December 6 and subsequently charged on December 15 with violating the PSPO.
Her prosecution was severely criticised by Jeremiah Igunnubole, counsel for ADF UK, the legal organisation which is supporting Vaughn-Spruce, as an attack on freedom and human rights.
He said:
Isabel’s experience should be deeply concerning to all those who believe that our hard-fought for fundamental rights are worth protecting.
It is truly astonishing that the law has granted local authorities such wide and unaccountable discretion that now even wrong thoughts can lead to a humiliating arrest and a criminal charge.
He continued:
A mature democracy should be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and peaceful exercise of constitutionally protected rights.
Isabel, a woman of good character, and who has tirelessly served her community by providing charitable assistance to vulnerable women and children, has been treated no better than a violent criminal.
The recent increase in buffer zone legislation and orders is a watershed moment in our country. We must now ask ourselves whether we are a genuinely democratic nation committed to protecting the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of speech.
The recent proliferation of censorship zones suggest that we are now mindlessly sleepwalking into a society that accepts, normalises and even promotes the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
Her arrest follows an incident in Bournemouth where a woman was prevented from praying publicly when she was outside the buffer zone of an abortion clinic there.
Last year, a grandmother from Liverpool successfully appealed against her conviction and fine for praying silently near an abortion facility on a walk during lockdown.
In Westminster, parliamentarians are considering legislation to introduce censorship zones in England and Wales.
Clause 9 of the Public Order Bill, currently under parliamentary debate, would prohibit pro-life volunteers from “influencing”, “advising”, “persuading”, “informing”, “occupying space” or even “expressing opinion” within the vicinity of an abortion facility.
Those who breach the rules could face up to two years in prison.
Yet a 2018 government review into the work of pro-life volunteers outside of abortion facilities found that instances of harassment are rare, and police already have powers to prosecute individuals engaging in such activities.
The most common activities of pro-life groups were found to be quiet or silent prayer, or offering leaflets about charitable support available to women who would like to consider alternative options to abortion.
The censorial provisions of the parliamentary bill drew substantive criticism from members of the House of Lords, including Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Beith, who deemed the clause “the most profound restriction on free speech I have ever seen in any UK legislation”.
Lord Farmer called the clause “fundamentally flawed”, and aske:
When one walks past, one sees that vigils are often small groups of harmless, mainly female, pensioners. Why should they be banned and silenced?
The Supreme Court decided however that buffer zones proposed around clinics in Northern Ireland did not violate the right to free expression upheld by European Convention on Human Rights.
The ruling was denounced by the Catholic bishops of Ireland, Scotland and England and Wales because of ramifications of buffer zones, usually of about 150 metres, being introduced anywhere.
Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, Lead Bishop for Life Issues in England and Wales, said the ruling raised important questions about the state’s powers in relation to the individual in a free society.
He said buffer zones were “disproportionate and unnecessary” and represented an attack on the religious liberty which was “essential for the flourishing and the realisation of the dignity of every human person, and is the foundational freedom of any free and democratic society”.
Scotland’s bishop said that the ruling simply failed “to protect basic freedoms of expression and freedom of assembly”.
They noted plans to introduce a national buffer zones law in Scotland were progressing and said that they would have “a chilling effect on freedom of speech and assembly in a country which has long valued both”.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.
Proverbs 17:15
So now apparently in the utterly black and dark U.K., having a silent prayer to yourself is illegal. This just shows how utterly fallen the West has become, that the act of standing where you shouldn’t and minding your own business, doing no harm to anyone, will get you arrested.
But more specifically, since this was a Roman Catholic woman, you can be assured that this only going to pour more gas on the fire, and their fervor to want to run riot and “reform” the political and religious structure in place.
Ignite The Right: Hundreds Of Thousands Of Australians And Catholics March For Freedom
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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brother Jacob, this note could also be a false flag so that we feel more sympathy towards the catholics and ignite the right or become more ecumenical…
Probably right. I honestly kept thinking the same thing, especially when something like this makes it on the Tucker Carlsen Show. Can never trust mainstream media.
Amen. Especially when mainstream media is mostly overrun with Catholics. As the times get worse by the minute, every story is going to have to be put under the microscope because these liars don’t seem to want to abandon their little schemes. Maybe it will be Rome becoming the laughing stock of the world that will hasten the destruction of that whore, finally and forever.
Hmmm, I never thought of that. It makes sense, as the right is primarily Catholic so once they’re fully ignited, the doo doo is going to hit the fan.
It’s atrocious to think that this woman was hauled away for possibly committing a “thought crime”, but when this incident is published by The Catholic Herald, the alarm should go off that this is another staged “ignite the right” incident as was done in Canada with that Pawlowski pastor, “celebrating Passover”, who was later found to have some Catholic connection somewhere in his past. It sounded fishy from the start and so does this story. I don’t think the Brits have become that unhinged yet.
Maybe that’s why there’s such a thing as a “prayer closet” to go to instead of engaging in public displays of piety. This story has gotten even an otherwise discerning, on-line preacher fit to be tied and I hope he calms down enough to consider the source of this highly possible, contrived mayhem.