The Catholic Union is urging the Government to acknowledge that private prayer should never be seen as unlawful, as part of a Home Office consultation on the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics.
The Public Order Act 2023 includes the new offence of “interference with access to or provision of abortion services.” The measure was introduced by backbench MPs in the House of Commons and mandates the creation of “safe access zones” around abortion facilities.
These zones would prohibit “influencing” within 150m of abortion facilities, but the Catholic Union and others have shared concerns about the kinds of activity that may be regarded as influencing.
Catholic Union Director Nigel Parker condemned the Act. “The introduction of this new law is extremely regrettable. The Catholic Union argued at the time that it was not necessary and risked infringing fundamental human rights around freedom of thought and religion. While this new guidance is not statutory, it will be used by the police and others in determining what counts as criminal behaviour,” he said.
The Home Office is now consulting on guidance for the police and other authorities on the practical implication of this new law and its limits. Responding to the consultation, which closed this week, the Catholic Union said that any new guidance must make it clear that “individual, private prayer should never be considered an offence in and of itself”.
The Catholic Union warned that the situation could get even worse with the introduction of mandatory “safe access zones” around abortion clinics in England and Wales, and has called for the guidance to be tightened before it is published later this year. Mr Parker warned of the dire consequences of criminalising private prayer.
“The guidance therefore needs to make it abundantly clear that individual, private prayer should never be considered an offence in and of itself. If we lose the right to pray, then we lose the right to conscience. If we lose the right to conscience, then we lose the right to thought. And if we lose the right to thought, then we lose everything,” he said.
There have already been cases of people questioned and arrested near abortion clinics in which the main offence has been silent prayer. These incidents have happened where Public Space Protection Orders have been used by local authorities under existing legislation.
The latest call comes as new footage emerged of Catholic pro-life volunteer Isabel Vaughan-Spruce again being grilled by a police officer who questioned her about the nature of her silent thoughts in an abortion facility “buffer zone”. A West Midlands Police officer asked Vaughan-Spruce if she was “praying for the lives of unborn children.” Vaughan-Spruce explained that she was “just simply thinking, silently in my head.”
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who has prayed silently regularly outside abortion facilities for many years, has been arrested twice on the basis of her silent thoughts and was fully vindicated last March when Birmingham Magistrates’ Court returned a not guilty verdict. She also received an apology from the police in September.
Isabel believes there is an ‘urgent need’ for common sense to prevail.
“I’ve been arrested twice and fully vindicated by a court verdict that upheld my freedom of thought, and yet even still, officers continue to interrogate me for the simple act of thinking prayerful thoughts on a public street,” she said.
“Ahead of the new ‘buffer zones’ law being implemented, there is an urgent need for clarity as to everybody’s right to freedom of thought, as is protected in international human rights law.”
The Government has previously said it hopes to introduce buffer zones around abortion clinics in spring 2024.