CV NEWS FEED // A pro-life man in the UK has been fined for standing silently outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, as the free speech dispute over so-called “buffer zones” in the nation continues.
A video of two police officers interrogating and issuing a fine to a pro-life man, Sebastian Vaughan-Spruce, 44, for merely standing silently near an abortion clinic has gone viral on social media.
“Are you here praying for the lives of unborn children?” a police officer asks Vaughan-Spruce in the video. Vaughan-Spruce replied he was not.
Officers further questioned Vaughan-Spruce, demanding that he “carry out his actions elsewhere,” refusing to clarify what action or offense they were referring to.
“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was interrogated, and issued a penalty, simply for being pro-life and being on a certain public street,” Vaughan-Spruce said in a statement following the incident. “Others were present there at the same time, yet I was singled out because of the beliefs I happen to hold.”
He continued:
We’re told buffer zones are there to prevent harassment – and I firmly believe that nobody should ever be subjected to harassment, which is already illegal. But these regulations are now being misused to punish people for ‘wrong thinking’ in a public space in the UK.
Buffer zones, otherwise called “safe access zones,” were signed into law in England and Wales on May 2, 2023. The UK government’s non-statutory guidance states that a key principle behind the legislation is that “it is unacceptable for anyone to be harassed or distressed simply for exercising their legal right to access abortion services.”
“The rights to gather, to express views and to manifest religious beliefs are a cornerstone of democracy in Britain,” the guidance also notes, adding: “People should be free to gather and express their views, however uncomfortable they are to others, providing they do so within the law.”
