CV NEWS FEED // A woman from the United Kingdom who was arrested twice for praying silently outside of an abortion clinic received an apology and a payment from the police.
Modernity News reports that Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who co-directs March for Life UK, was arrested for standing quietly near an abortion clinic. When police asked her if she was praying for the unborn, she answered, “I might be praying in my head.” Police arrested her after asking her to step outside of the “exclusion zone” or safe access zone, an area outside of an abortion clinic where protests are forbidden, despite the fact that she was not protesting.
After her first arrest, Vaughan-Spruce was acquitted in court, but she was arrested again for praying silently a few weeks later. They told her, “You’ve said you’re engaging in prayer, which is the offense.”
Vaughan-Spruce told the Telegraph that “Silent prayer is not a crime,” and continued, “Nobody should be arrested merely for the thoughts they have in their heads – yet this happened to me twice at the hands of the West Midlands Police, who explicitly told me that ‘prayer is an offense’.”
Vaughn-Spruce acknowledged the Alliance Defending Freedom’s role in helping her attain justice, saying, “There is no place for Orwell’s Thought Police in 21st-century Britain, and thanks to legal support I received from ADF UK, I’m delighted that the settlement that I have received today acknowledges that.”
After Vaughan-Spruce’s victory, however, the new Labour government indicated “it would scrap previous guidance that allowed silent prayer within ‘safe access zones,’” Modernity reports.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson stated, “We specifically voted against proposals to allow silent prayer and consensual communication in safe access zones.”
Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Frost expressed that he was glad Vaughan-Spruce received compensation after her unjust arrests, however, if a recent report is correct that the Government is considering formally criminalizing silent prayer outside abortion centres, then there will be further such cases, and then not just freedom of speech but freedom of thought will be under threat. It is hard to imagine a more absurd and dangerous situation.
