Dorothy Bain KC, the Scottish Government’s chief legal officer, has suggested that prayer outside abortion facilities may be “psychologically damaging” to women.
Bain KC was speaking at a UK Supreme Court hearing on buffer zones when she likened peaceful prayer to “violent conduct”, questioning whether there should be any differentiation in law between the two.
“Silent prayer”, suggested Bain, “almost standing in judgement, is far more damaging to the young woman than hurling names and abuse at her”.
A spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Scotland condemned Bain’s “absurd and alarming” comments and called on the Scottish Lord Advocate to “withdraw entirely the preposterous claim that a woman about to have her child aborted could be ‘psychologically damaged’ by seeing someone engaged in silent prayer beforehand”.
City councils in Scotland are currently assessing the possibility of imposing buffer zones around abortion facilities and outlawing pro-life speech and peaceful activity, though Aberdeen City Council was recently warned that this “could breach human rights”.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “The suggestion that praying for women and their unborn children is ‘damaging’ is an outrageous manipulation of the meaning and true intention of prayer.
“This is also a freedom of speech and religious practice issue, since the Lord Advocate appeared to suggest that peaceful prayer should be restricted by law – a profoundly worrying and illiberal development, especially in a society that cherishes its hard-won liberties, of freedom of religion and peaceful expression.
“Dorothy Bain KC should hang her head in shame for her disgraceful remarks.
“Pro-life vigils are peaceful and prayerful, offering help to women in desperate situations, when abortions are the last thing that many women want. Despite this, recently there has been an ongoing campaign of misrepresentation of such vigils – likely in order to pave the way for the censorship of pro-life speech and religious expression.
“Should this be allowed, in the long run, all free speech would be threatened under the justification of tackling ‘psychologically damaging’ speech, which could mean essentially anything.”
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