>BIRMINGHAM (20 December 2022) – A charity volunteer has been arrested and charged on four counts after she told the police she “might” be praying silently, when questioned as to why she was standing on a public street near an abortion facility.
>Police approached Isabel Vaughan-Spruce standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham. Vaughan-Spruce was carrying no sign and remained completely silent until approached by officers. Police had received complaints from an onlooker who suspected that Vaughan-Spruce was praying silently in her mind.
>“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind. Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever 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 and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.
>The censorship zone measure introduced by Birmingham authorities criminalises individuals percieved to be “engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval” in relation to abortion, including through “verbal or written means, prayer or counselling…”.
>At 150m, the censorship zone is larger than a football pitch (115m). In the equivalent space, if one goalkeeper were to pray for the other goalkeeper – regardless of impact or noticeability – that would be an offence.
>Vaughan-Spruce had stood near the abortion facility whilst it was closed on three occasions, in which she says she “might” have been praying.
>When shown pictures of herself outside the abortion facility by police, Vaughan-Spruce was questioned as to whether she was praying in the photos. She said she could not answer – some of the time she had spent praying, other times she had been distracted and thought about other things, such as her lunch. She maintains that both of these thoughts were equally peaceful and imperceptible and that neither should be criminalised.
>“Isabel’s experience should be deeply concerning to all those who believe that our hard-fought fundamental rights are worth protecting. It is truly astonishing that the law has granted local authorities such wide and unaccountable discretion, that now even thoughts deemed “wrong” can lead to a humiliating arrest and a criminal charge,” said Jeremiah Igunnubole, Legal Counsel for ADF UK, the legal organisation supporting Vaughan-Spruce.
> “A mature democracy should be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and the 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 ask ourselves whether we are a genuinely democratic country committed to protecting the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of speech. We are at serious risk of mindlessly sleepwalking into a society that accepts, normalises, and even promotes the “tyranny of the majority,” he continued.
>As part of her conditions for bail, Vaughan-Spruce was told that she should not contact a local Catholic priest who was also involved in pro-life work – a condition that was later dropped.
>Police also imposed restrictions, as part of her bail, on Vaughan-Spruce engaging in public prayer beyond the PSPO area, stating that this was necessary to prevent further offences.
This is interesting not because of the fake content, but that it’s a good example of American political organisations interfering in European politics.
The ‘Alliance for Defending Freedom’ is a Christian fundamentalist organisation that promotes the destruction of women’s freedom to choose when to have children.
It wants to turn the US into a Christian version of Iran.
She was protesting in an area she wasn’t allowed to, it’s not ideal but it makes sense to have restrictions on protests such as outside army bases or places where people going through an emotional time are likely to be harassed
Wtf is this shite ? Look at the state of her idiot face. She’s chuffed to bits that she got collared because now she feels important when in reality no one is important , we are all just meat , walking around like we are special because some other meat figured out how to fly/build an iPhone /make fire . Abortion should be compulsory
What’s the problem if she’s standing there basically looking like a twat doing nothing but thinking silently ??? Sorry, but I just don’t get it, I don’t know why the police have the right to arrest somebody silently praying.
Before I get hammered by down votes, I’m atheist and being the father of 2 women ( and raised by a single mum) I am FULLY in favour of a woman having full autonomy of her body and the right to choose how and what she does with her body.
If this person was hanging around with signs, shouting abuse or trying to interfere with people using the building, then yes I would fully understand and agree that she should be moved on/arrested for causing a public nuisance, but simply standing there in silent thought??? I think that it’s a bit dangerous for the police to be able to arrest someone for that reason.
Yeah she’s a bit of a dickhead imo, but committing a crime worthy of arrest? I don’t believe so.
I mean, she wasn’t, was she? Because that’s not something you can get arrested for in this country.
ADF are a US right wing Christian group that works to curtail rights for LGBTQ people; expand Christian practices within public schools and in government; and outlaw abortion.
There is a VERY concerted attempt by the political right in the US, and their fans in the UK, to mould the UK in the image of the Republican Party.
These anti abortion protests are part of that effort
Kemi [attacking BLM] is another and trying to pretend systemic racism does not exist (against all the evidence) is another
“activists” trying to silence the National Trust from taking about the history of their properties is yet another.
The political right has played a 60 yr long game in the US. They are more than happy to play a game just as long here.
These protestors are useful idiots being used by the right wing to create a wedge issue that can be used to make people vote against their best interests.
> Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. . .In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful.
> …Opposing abortion rights was the Trojan Horse [Jerry Fallwell] and other white, Southern evangelicals had been looking for to repel integration and reify white supremacist patriarchal power. What spawned the modern anti-abortion movement wasn’t even abortion –– it was racism.
> “We have anti-choice women in for abortions all the time…Many of them are not malicious. They just haven’t given it the proper amount of thought…Then suddenly they become pregnant. Suddenly they see the truth. That it should only be their own choice. Unfortunately, many also think that somehow they are different than everyone else and they deserve to have an abortion, while no one else does.”
That is not prayer or protest, it’s some sick attempt to shame women going in for a medical procedure. It won’t be long until there’s groups of zealots loudly harassing lone women for sport if this is allowed to continue. If she’s been arrested and charged for this then so much the better, this needs nipping in the bud.
The lady in question posting this article in November suggests otherwise:
It’s about protesting the same clinic. What’s that thing about bearing false witness, again?
The western world is starting to resemble the Soviet union
So people are now posting articles from US conservative christian advocacy groups? Is this the direction that the UK is heading in? I already see adverts in London for various American Evangelical preacher con-men coming hear to fleece the population and attract the feeble minded and gullible. Hopefully these groups and the idiots who follow them will get no traction here, but nothing surprises me anymore.
13 comments
>BIRMINGHAM (20 December 2022) – A charity volunteer has been arrested and charged on four counts after she told the police she “might” be praying silently, when questioned as to why she was standing on a public street near an abortion facility.
>Police approached Isabel Vaughan-Spruce standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham. Vaughan-Spruce was carrying no sign and remained completely silent until approached by officers. Police had received complaints from an onlooker who suspected that Vaughan-Spruce was praying silently in her mind.
>“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind. Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever 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 and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.
>The censorship zone measure introduced by Birmingham authorities criminalises individuals percieved to be “engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval” in relation to abortion, including through “verbal or written means, prayer or counselling…”.
>At 150m, the censorship zone is larger than a football pitch (115m). In the equivalent space, if one goalkeeper were to pray for the other goalkeeper – regardless of impact or noticeability – that would be an offence.
>Vaughan-Spruce had stood near the abortion facility whilst it was closed on three occasions, in which she says she “might” have been praying.
>When shown pictures of herself outside the abortion facility by police, Vaughan-Spruce was questioned as to whether she was praying in the photos. She said she could not answer – some of the time she had spent praying, other times she had been distracted and thought about other things, such as her lunch. She maintains that both of these thoughts were equally peaceful and imperceptible and that neither should be criminalised.
>“Isabel’s experience should be deeply concerning to all those who believe that our hard-fought fundamental rights are worth protecting. It is truly astonishing that the law has granted local authorities such wide and unaccountable discretion, that now even thoughts deemed “wrong” can lead to a humiliating arrest and a criminal charge,” said Jeremiah Igunnubole, Legal Counsel for ADF UK, the legal organisation supporting Vaughan-Spruce.
> “A mature democracy should be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and the 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 ask ourselves whether we are a genuinely democratic country committed to protecting the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of speech. We are at serious risk of mindlessly sleepwalking into a society that accepts, normalises, and even promotes the “tyranny of the majority,” he continued.
>As part of her conditions for bail, Vaughan-Spruce was told that she should not contact a local Catholic priest who was also involved in pro-life work – a condition that was later dropped.
>Police also imposed restrictions, as part of her bail, on Vaughan-Spruce engaging in public prayer beyond the PSPO area, stating that this was necessary to prevent further offences.
This is interesting not because of the fake content, but that it’s a good example of American political organisations interfering in European politics.
The ‘Alliance for Defending Freedom’ is a Christian fundamentalist organisation that promotes the destruction of women’s freedom to choose when to have children.
It wants to turn the US into a Christian version of Iran.
She was protesting in an area she wasn’t allowed to, it’s not ideal but it makes sense to have restrictions on protests such as outside army bases or places where people going through an emotional time are likely to be harassed
Wtf is this shite ? Look at the state of her idiot face. She’s chuffed to bits that she got collared because now she feels important when in reality no one is important , we are all just meat , walking around like we are special because some other meat figured out how to fly/build an iPhone /make fire . Abortion should be compulsory
What’s the problem if she’s standing there basically looking like a twat doing nothing but thinking silently ??? Sorry, but I just don’t get it, I don’t know why the police have the right to arrest somebody silently praying.
Before I get hammered by down votes, I’m atheist and being the father of 2 women ( and raised by a single mum) I am FULLY in favour of a woman having full autonomy of her body and the right to choose how and what she does with her body.
If this person was hanging around with signs, shouting abuse or trying to interfere with people using the building, then yes I would fully understand and agree that she should be moved on/arrested for causing a public nuisance, but simply standing there in silent thought??? I think that it’s a bit dangerous for the police to be able to arrest someone for that reason.
Yeah she’s a bit of a dickhead imo, but committing a crime worthy of arrest? I don’t believe so.
I mean, she wasn’t, was she? Because that’s not something you can get arrested for in this country.
ADF are a US right wing Christian group that works to curtail rights for LGBTQ people; expand Christian practices within public schools and in government; and outlaw abortion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Defending_Freedom
There is a VERY concerted attempt by the political right in the US, and their fans in the UK, to mould the UK in the image of the Republican Party.
These anti abortion protests are part of that effort
Kemi [attacking BLM] is another and trying to pretend systemic racism does not exist (against all the evidence) is another
“activists” trying to silence the National Trust from taking about the history of their properties is yet another.
The political right has played a 60 yr long game in the US. They are more than happy to play a game just as long here.
These protestors are useful idiots being used by the right wing to create a wedge issue that can be used to make people vote against their best interests.
Abortion was [not historically a concern](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/) for evangelicals
> Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. . .In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful.
It only became an issue after segregated (white only) religious schools in the American south had their [tax exempt status removed](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/anti-abortion-politics-have-always-been-the-right-wing-s-trojan-horse-for-racism/ar-AAYFhbi)
> …Opposing abortion rights was the Trojan Horse [Jerry Fallwell] and other white, Southern evangelicals had been looking for to repel integration and reify white supremacist patriarchal power. What spawned the modern anti-abortion movement wasn’t even abortion –– it was racism.
And, of course, ‘[the only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)”
> “We have anti-choice women in for abortions all the time…Many of them are not malicious. They just haven’t given it the proper amount of thought…Then suddenly they become pregnant. Suddenly they see the truth. That it should only be their own choice. Unfortunately, many also think that somehow they are different than everyone else and they deserve to have an abortion, while no one else does.”
That is not prayer or protest, it’s some sick attempt to shame women going in for a medical procedure. It won’t be long until there’s groups of zealots loudly harassing lone women for sport if this is allowed to continue. If she’s been arrested and charged for this then so much the better, this needs nipping in the bud.
The lady in question posting this article in November suggests otherwise:
[https://thecritic.co.uk/what-is-at-stake-in-the-buffer-zone-debate/](https://thecritic.co.uk/what-is-at-stake-in-the-buffer-zone-debate/)
It’s about protesting the same clinic. What’s that thing about bearing false witness, again?
The western world is starting to resemble the Soviet union
So people are now posting articles from US conservative christian advocacy groups? Is this the direction that the UK is heading in? I already see adverts in London for various American Evangelical preacher con-men coming hear to fleece the population and attract the feeble minded and gullible. Hopefully these groups and the idiots who follow them will get no traction here, but nothing surprises me anymore.