The House of Lords has backed the national roll out of buffer zones around abortion clinics in a move which could turn private and silent prayer into a thought crime.
Peers voted in favour a move to criminalise activity that seeks to “influence” the decision of women booked in for abortions to go ahead with the procedure.
After a Report Stage debate, they also rejected an amendment tabled to the Public Order Bill to investigate the evidence that would justify so-called exclusion zones and the corresponding denial of the recognised human rights of association, conscience, freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
They supported Amendment 45, tabled by Conservative peer Baroness Sugg of Coldharbour, to make it a crime to influence “any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services”.
It also makes it a criminal offence to cause “harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services” within 150 metres of an abortion clinic.
The amendment replaced a similar buffer zones “Clause 9” amendment introduced in the Commons by campaigning pro-abortion MPs because the measure might not have complied with the 1998 Human Rights Act.
Lady Sugg told the Lords that Amendment 45 was “a more legally robust clause, it is compliant with human rights, it delivers the intent to protect women when they are accessing their legal right to healthcare”.
She said: “I do not support another review by the Home Office. I wish this legislation was not necessary, but every week around 2,000 women use abortion clinics that are now regularly targeted by protesters.
“This activity is on the rise and much of it is organised and funded by groups from the United States. Action is needed to ensure that we do not allow this activity to escalate here in the UK.
“We are seeing these zones introduced in France, Spain, Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland and soon in Scotland as well. It is really important that we give women in England and Wales the same protection that women are getting in those jurisdictions.”
Lord Weir of Ballyholme, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, Lord Cormack and Baroness Fox of Buckley all spoke about the potentially serious implications of an amendment which would criminalise basic principles of democracy and free speech.
Lord Weir raised concerns about a criminal offence of “influence”, saying that “surely at the heart of the concept of freedom of speech, and the value of democracy, is the peaceful way in which people try to persuade others of their point of view”.
“Where that goes beyond the art of persuasion towards any level of threat or intimidation, it is unacceptable and should be criminal, but if we are criminalising expressions of opinion or influence, that is fundamentally wrong.”
Lady Fox, a supporter of abortion, told peers that “influencing is the basis of democracy” and that women must also be “free to change their mind at any time and in any direction, up until either termination or what have you”.
“It is not coercive if you think again,” she said.
Several peers said the amendment could ban silent prayer and referred to Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic arrested in December for praying silently outside a closed Birmingham abortion facility buffered by a Public Space Protection Order granted by the local authority.
Lord Jackson said the Vaughan-Spruce case along with that of Adam Smith-Connor in Bournemouth “took people by surprise, since they were not aware that silent prayer had become criminalised in this country”.
He said: “These cases further highlight the dangers to free expression and belief inherent in these buffer zones. They demonstrate how quickly the position could be that the specific act that turns someone into a criminal is whether they had particular thoughts in their head while in a buffer zone area.”
He added: “This amendment does not actually exclude the outside [areas] of private property, so anyone who is in their private garden or their own car expressing their conscience could be criminalised.”
Catherine Robinson of Right to Life said: “This amendment is nothing short of the criminalisation of a particular point of view. It makes it illegal to be publicly, and even privately, pro-life in a certain part of the country.
“Lord Shinkwin encouraged other peers who are not concerned with ‘setting dangerous precedents or about passing laws brimming with unintended consequences’ to support the Amendment, and that is exactly what they did.
“In all likelihood, this poorly-thought-through piece of legislation will be passed by the House of Commons and result in a series of court cases because it is not clear, in a case of silent prayer for example, whether an individual is breaking the law or not.”
The result of the free vote means that Amendment 45 is included in the Bill, which will be scrutinised again by the House of Commons before it is passed into law.
Ahead of the debate, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales said buffer zones would represent a severe blow for freedom of religion in England and Wales.
Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, the lead bishop for life issues, said: “The interpretation of terms such as ‘seeks to influence’ could make prayer, certain types of thought, and even mere presence a criminal offence in a public place.
“There is a risk, despite any other intent, that existing and proposed measures constitute discrimination and disproportionately have an impact on people of religious faith. Its implications extend beyond the perimeters of an abortion service and raise questions about the state’s powers in relation to the individual in a free society, both those with faith and those without.
“All harassment and intimidation of women is to be condemned,” he continued. “Moreover, as accepted in a 2018 Home Office Review, there are already laws and mechanisms in place to protect women from such unacceptable behaviour and so render this Clause unnecessary and excessive.
“The Catholic bishops, and many others, hold religious liberty to be essential for the flourishing and the realisation of the dignity of every human person and recognise it as a foundational freedom of any free and democratic society.”
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