The Home Office is to consider banning silent prayer within 150 metres of abortion facilities in England and Wales, a move slammed by SPUC as illiberal and dangerous.
The pro-abortion lobby is pressuring the Home Office to implement buffer zones, as voted for by MPs last year, which may also outlaw silent prayer.
Last year, MPs voted to impose buffer zones of 150 metres around all abortion facilities. However, the implementation of the restrictive law was delayed, allowing for draft guidance to be written.
The guidance then stated that “prayer within a safe access zone should not automatically be seen as unlawful”.
It continued: “Silent prayer, being the engagement of the mind and thought in prayer towards God, is protected as an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998 and should not, on its own, be considered to be an offence under any circumstances.”
But the pro-abortion lobby, including the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), has urged Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the new Labour Government to ignore the guidance and enforce the ban in full and as “a matter of urgency”.
Ministers at the Home Office are now reportedly reconsidering the guidance, meaning that silent prayer may be banned “imminently”.
Several pro-life activists, including Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, have already been arrested for silently praying near abortion facilities in England, leading the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to add Britain to its list of global violations of religious freedom.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “The Labour Government has already indicated that it doesn’t believe in free speech, or at least beliefs it doesn’t agree with. Now it seems set to violate religious freedoms that the UK once took for granted.
“This is a profoundly worrying moment, and as usual, pro-life men and women are on the frontline of the attack on free speech. If the Home Office ignores human rights so blatantly, a dangerous precedent will be set, making thoughtcrime a horrifying reality in the UK.”
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