A charity volunteer was arrested after telling police she “might” have been praying silently when questioned about why she was on a public street near an abortion clinic.
Newsroom (25/12/2022 2:15 PM, Gaudium Press) Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, director of the March for Life organization in the UK and a volunteer supporting women in pregnancy crisis, was approached by police near an abortion clinic in Birmingham. The police had received a report that she was mentally praying. The new law passed in the UK “criminalizes individuals deemed to be ‘involved in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted approval or disapproval’ in relation to abortion, including by ‘verbal or written means, prayer or counselling…'”
However, Vaughan-Spruce carried no signs and was completely silent until she was approached by the officers who showed her some pictures of herself outside the abortion clinic, questioning whether she was praying.
“It is completely wrong that I was searched, arrested, questioned by police and charged simply for mentally praying. I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, within the privacy of my own mind. No one should be criminalized for thinking and praying in a public space, in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.
“My faith is a central part of who I am, so sometimes I stand or walk near an abortion clinic and pray about that issue. That is something I have done pretty much every week for the last 20 years of my life. I pray for my friends who have had abortions and for the women who are thinking about doing it themselves,” Isabel Vaughan-Spruce pointed out.
Thought crime?
“Isabel’s experience is very troubling for all of us who believe that our hard-won fundamental rights are worth protecting. It is truly amazing that the law has granted local authorities such a broad and unaccountable discretion to judge, that now even thoughts are considered ‘wrong’ and can lead to a humiliating arrest and criminal charge. A mature democracy must be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and the peaceful exercise of constitutionally protected rights,” said Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF UK, the legal organization supporting Vaughan-Spruce.
With information from adf.uk.
Compiled by Teresa Joseph