“It’s not our rights we should be concerned about, but those of the babies”
MPs showed their concern for animals by unanimously backing a ban on importing hunting trophies this March, yet a few days earlier had voted to ban all prayer and ‘consensual conversations’ outside abortion clinics, which have saved human babies’ lives.
Campaigner Christian Hacking, who has himself been arrested for pro-life protests, says of this attack on free speech:
On 8 March Labour MPs Rupa Huq and Stella Creasy pranced down a House of Commons corridor mimicking the words of Jon Bon Jovi’s famous song, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’.
How do I know this? Because Ms Creasy published it on her own Instagram channel.
The cause of their elation? The successful passage of their law prohibiting any attempt to “influence any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services”.
More specifically it was the defeat of a last minute bill constructed by concerned, predominantly Christian MPs, seeking to distinguish and protect “silent prayer”, together with consensual conversations, as at least two activities that could take place in these 150 zones.
But MPs squashed the amendment by 299 to 116, meaning that when these zones are put into practical effect around all 373 of England and Wales’ active abortion clinics, silent prayer may well be enveloped in the term “influencing” and subsequently prohibited. This is distinct from the six clinics that already specifically prohibited “prayer” using the more localised legal tool of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs).
Christians will get taken to police stations and slapped with fines. However, they will not get poisoned, ripped apart, dissected and discarded into clinical waste
Creasy’s choice of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ as her victory anthem could not have been more ironic. The lyrics “Oh we’re halfway there, to criminalise prayer” would have been a better fit. Nor should it go unnoticed that the first place where prayer is being effectively banned is outside the places where children are being sacrificed to the gods of sexual liberty, fear, career progression or just pure self. A total of 220,000 British babies were deliberately killed last year (although around half of these deaths were in homes by means of DIY abortion pills).
The matter is grievous in God’s eyes and should be a cause for constant lamentation and upset to the Church. The words of Psalm 10 – the ‘victim psalm’ – come to mind:
Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
Yet Christians must not fall into the trap of thinking that we are the victims here.
Yes, the restricting of religious liberty and the introduction of thought police is worrying. And yes, the omission of thousands of mothers from this debate, who have benefited from pavement counsellors and have the children to prove it, is unjust. Of course, as a result of the 8 March vote, Christians will, with increasing frequency, get taken to police stations and slapped with fines. However, they will not get poisoned, ripped apart, dissected and discarded into clinical waste, which is happening to our babies, every single day. The only person I have heard who clearly made this case was a caller to LBC radio!
Christians must not be found to be insisting on their rights for their own sakes – remember, we are blessed when our rights are trampled on (Matthew 5:11).
If we simply insist on our right to pray silently outside state approved “medical centres”, we look as if we are insisting on the right of weird people to be weird wherever they want
If we simply insist on our right to pray silently outside state approved “medical centres”, we look as if we are insisting on the right of weird people to be weird wherever they want. Freedom of religion, thought and conscience are indeed vitally important, but they’re secondary to the much stronger case we should be making, that it’s morally wrong to kill innocent human beings and that we, the Church, will peacefully exercise all of our faculties and resources, accepting arrest when necessary, to bring this injustice to an end.
I commend the bravery of people like Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, Adam Smith Connor and others who are publicly defying these buffer zones. My only request is that these arrests primarily become a means, not to lament our loss of freedom, but to talk about the real victims. Until the world understands what is happening to the babies inside the clinic, they will never understand why we are so desperate to pray outside them.
Christian Hacking is Public Engagement Officer for the Campaign for Bio-Ethical Reform UK (CBR UK)
Arrested for praying
After Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, founder of March for Life in Britain, was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic, her case hit the headlines and in February all charges were dropped, along with those of Fr Sean Gough, who was also charged for praying; Fr Sean said the police expressed anger over his bumper sticker stating, “Unborn lives matter”.
Ms Vaughan-Spruce was arrested again on 6 March and has been released on bail under conditions prohibiting her from attending prayer vigils outside clinics. At the time of printing, she is waiting to hear whether she will be charged.
Meanwhile legal advocates ADF are appealing a fine that was issued to Adam Smith Connor for praying for his deceased son. A petition it started calling on Home Secretary Suella Braverman to “protect freedom of speech and of thought” had 2,788 signatures by 23 March