LIVERPOOL, England (OSV News) — The English and Welsh bishops have criticized a decision by the British government to put “buffer zones” around all abortion clinics, which could see Christians arrested for offering private prayers.
This legislation, contained in the Public Order Act 2023 and which will come into force from Oct. 31, criminalizes a range of activities within a 492 feet or 150 meters of an abortion facility, the Home Office announced in a Sept. 18 press release.
Such activities potentially include prayer, thought, peaceful presence, consensual communication and offers of practical support to women in vulnerable situations.
“Safe access buffer zones will make it illegal for anyone to do 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,” the government’s press release said.
Anyone who breaks the law could be published with an “unlimited fine.”
Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, the lead bishop for life issues, said: “This legislation constitutes discrimination and disproportionately affects people of faith.
“Religious freedom is the foundational freedom of any free and democratic society, essential for the flourishing and realisation of dignity of every human person,” he said in a Sept. 18 statement posted on the website of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
“Religious freedom includes the right to manifest one’s private beliefs in public through witness, prayer and charitable outreach, including outside abortion facilities,” he continued.
“As well as being unnecessary and disproportionate, we have deep concerns around the practical effectiveness of this legislation, particularly given the lack of clarity in relation to the practice of private prayer and offers of help within ‘safe access zones’.”
The bishop said: “This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism’.”
He added: “By legislating for and implementing so-called ‘safe access zones’, the UK Government has taken an unnecessary and disproportionate step backwards in the protection of religious and civic freedoms in England and Wales.”
At present, buffer zones exist around a small number of abortion clinics where local authorities have introduced them.
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said however that the Labour government wished to roll out the exclusion zones nationally because it was keen to prevent women from feeling “unsafe” when they went for abortions.
She said: “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.”
The announcement comes just weeks after police paid 13,000 pounds ($16,900) in compensation to a Catholic woman who was wrongfully arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic.
West Midlands Police conceded claims of two wrongful arrests of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce along with false imprisonments, assault and battery in relation to an intrusive search, a breach of her human rights and to onerous bail conditions.
Catholic priest Father Sean Gough was also charged for holding a sign within the buffer zone reading “praying for free speech” and his case was similarly dismissed by a judge in Birmingham.
Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF UK, said that the new regulations against “influencing” left innocent people “open to prosecution for engaging in consensual conversation or even silent thought”.
“Engaging in silent prayer, or consensual conversation, are peaceful acts protected by human rights law,” he said in a Sept. 18 statement.
“Whilst the government has heeded calls to refrain from naming these acts as criminal offences, the threshold for criminality remains intolerably unclear,” he said.
The announcement by the government came the day after magistrates in Poole, southern England, tried the case of Adam Smith-Connor, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who was arrested after he prayed silently within a buffer zone around an abortion facility in Bournemouth. The verdict of the court is expected to be delivered in October.
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