Silent prayer outside abortion clinics is ‘not necessarily’ against the law

People who pray silently outside abortion clinics may not necessarily be committing against the law, the Crown Prosecution Service has said. 

It has published guidance in relation to latest ‘secure access zones’ that got here into effect outside abortion clinics on 31 October. 

The buffer zones establish a 150-metre boundary around all clinics and hospitals offering abortion services in England and Wales.

They make it a criminal offence to “influence any person’s decision to access or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic”, obstruct individuals from accessing abortion clinics, or “cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person in reference to a call to access, provide or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic”.

The Home Office said that the police and prosecutors “will consider each case individually based on the evidence” but that the regulations “could also cover prayer”, including “silent prayer”, vigils and “any behaviour where someone is intentionally attempting to – or recklessly acting in a way that may – influence an individual accessing the service”.

Breaking the brand new laws carries a vast superb.

The guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service suggests that praying silently inside an abortion clinic buffer zone may not all the time be treated as a criminal act.

“A one that carries out any of those activities [including silent prayer] inside a secure access zone is not going to necessarily commit a criminal offence,” it states.

“Prosecutors will need to contemplate not only all of the facts and circumstances of the actual conduct but additionally the context through which the conduct takes place.”

The guidance has been issued just weeks after the UK’s first conviction for silent prayer. Adam Smith-Connor was sentenced to a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £9,000 in costs for praying silently for just a few minutes inside an abortion clinic buffer zone in Bournemouth. 

Jeremiah Igunnubole, Smith-Connor’s legal counsel on the Alliance Defending Freedom UK, has expressed concern that the brand new laws might be used to crack down on silent prayer or innocent, consensual conversations between adults. 

“The right to carry a consensual conversation, or engage in silent prayer, constitute essentially the most basic of human rights. They are protected robustly by international legal provisions referring to freedom of thought and speech,” he said.

“The entire premise of censorial buffer zone laws is that ladies should find a way to decide on to access abortion without hindrance. The legal elephant within the room must be obvious to see. If the law states that a girl can decide to abort their unborn child without hindrance, even the ‘hindrance’ of lawful alternatives to abortion, how can the law criminalise women once they select to interact in lawful, harmless and consensual conversations?

“This is a watershed moment for British freedoms, and one the general public must not take frivolously. A failure to guard thought and peaceful speech anywhere creates a threat to those rights in every single place. Buffer zones or otherwise, we should always uncompromisingly safeguard the rights on which our democracy is predicated.”