Last night Members of Parliament voted to outlaw any form of protest outside abortion clinics.
MPs voted on Tuesday 19th October 2022 in favour of installing buffer zones 150 meters around all abortion clinics and hospitals in England and Wales. 297 MPs voted in favour of the amendment while 110 rejected it, a majority of 187. Two hundred and forty MPs did not vote at all.
See how your MP voted (or abstained) HERE.
Sign our Petition against Buffer Zones HERE.
MPs were allowed a free vote by their parties on the amendment, which meant they did not face pressure from party leaders to vote a certain way. It also meant the amendment was sure to pass; Labour and Liberal Democrats MPs always vote virtually en masse for abortion, while the Conservatives are always split.
What the New Clause Says
The new clause adds an ‘Offence of interference with access to or provision of abortion services.’
It says: ‘(1) A person who is within a buffer zone and who interferes with any person’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services in that buffer zone is guilty of an offence’ and the penalty can be six months in prison.
‘Interferes with’ means ‘(a) seeks to influence, (b) persistently, continuously or repeatedly occupies, (c) impedes or threatens, (d) intimidates or harasses, (e) advises or persuades, attempts to advise or persuade, or otherwise expresses opinion, (f) informs or attempts to inform about abortion services by any means, including, without limitation, graphic, physical, verbal or written means, or (g) sketches, photographs, records, stores, broadcasts, or transmits images, audio, likenesses or personal data of any person without express consent.’
One MP ventured that someone driving a partner or a friend to an abortion clinic would be guilty of a crime if they merely asked ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ Guilty that is, if the car were within 150m of the clinic. If the car is outside that distance they can say what they like. Naturally, the Guardian claims the measure was necessary to protect women accessing abortion services from protests and harassment.
Clare Murphy, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said ‘Every year, around 100,000 women are treated by a clinic or hospital for an abortion that is targeted by anti-abortion protests.
These groups attempt to deter or prevent women from accessing abortion care by displaying graphic images of foetuses, calling women ‘murderers’, and hanging baby clothing around clinic entrances, causing women significant distress. Today’s vote will bring an end to this activity.’
Note ‘abortion care’. But the Bible confirms a baby in the womb, or ‘foetus’ in the language of the pro-abortion people, is a living human being. This is Elizabeth, 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist, speaking to Mary, the mother of an embryonic Jesus:
Luke 1:44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
In that case, destroying that infant life is not ‘care’, it is murder, and the Bible condemns murder regardless of the means:
Deut 27:25 Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Labour MP Stella Creasy proposed the new rules. She said: ‘Clause 11 is about abortion because, let us be honest, nobody is praying outside the places where people go to have a hip operation. Nobody offers rosary beads or dead foetuses outside the places people go when they have an ankle injury. This is about women accessing a very specific form of healthcare.’
No, indeed they are not. That is because those are genuine healthcare facilities; they are not places where people are being put to death, ripped out of what should be the safest place on God’s earth, a place of nurture and growth, as the Bible says:
Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
Ms Creasy said, ‘It does not stop free speech on abortion. It does not stop people protesting. It simply says you shouldn’t have the right to do this in the face of somebody, and very often these people are right up in front of people.’
Of course sending protestors 150 metres (164 yards) away does stop them protesting. And the Bible says:
Prov 31:8 Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
Carla Lockhart, Democratic Unionist MP for Upper Bann in Ulster, said ‘Many women have been helped by volunteers outside abortion clinics. The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) referred to Alina Dulgheriu, who wrote last week about her experience and how a lady helped her outside an abortion clinic. I will not repeat the story, but she explained that her “beautiful daughter would not be here today” without support from a volunteer handing out a leaflet outside the clinic.
Attack on Freedom of Speech
Under Article 10 of the Human Right Act 1998, everyone has the right to freedom of expression in the UK.
‘This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.’
The amendment to the Public Order Bill is an attack on freedom of speech. Ironically, the Opposition are claiming the entire Bill is an attack on freedom of speech.
Home Office minister Jeremy Quin said Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) were effective in protecting abortion clinics, and that a blanket ban on protests was a ‘blunt approach and disproportionate given the existing powers that can and should be used’. Mr Quin voted ‘No’, but as we have seen, Tory MPs were allowed to vote as they wanted.
Hospitals with Buffers
Currently, police and local authorities are permitted to set up zones in response to complaints over protests.
In 2018, Ealing Council in west London established the country’s first buffer zone, around a Marie Stopes clinic. Pro-life campaigners lost a legal challenge against it in 2019.
Five abortion clinics have buffer zones set up under PSPOs, which are local authority-led powers. Other councils have subsequently proposed similar schemes, with the latest in Bournemouth banning not just preaching but singing.
Similar legislation has been proposed in Scotland.
In June, Sottish minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said the Scottish government would back a member’s bill that would see 150-metre no-go areas placed outside health facilities so women could access services without fear, harassment or intimidation.
Defaulters to Face the law
The Sponsor of the amendment bill Stella Creasy, said anyone found guilty of breaching the buffer zone will face a summary conviction with a prison term of up to six months, an unlimited fine, or both.
The Bill still has several stages to clear before becoming law, including scrutiny in the House of Lords.
Christian Voice National Director, Stephen Green, said today: ‘If this becomes law, which may God forbid, we shall need to test its limits by standing outside clinics, perhaps with placards with various Bible verses (it’s what we do) or just silently praying, or perhaps preaching in general. I do not mind being arrested for preaching or witnessing, and we can see how it runs in the courts. They have picked a fight with the God of heaven. Who can remain silent?’
Innocent Blood brings Judgment
The Bible says the shedding of innocent blood brings judgment:
Numb 35:33 So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
If infanticide is legalised in a realm, the land indeed cannot be cleansed at all, and the judgment falls on the whole society. From the first recorded homicide in the Bible, we know that innocent blood cries to heaven:
Gen 4:10 And he (God) said (to Cain), What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Read and Pray
Gen 09:06; Gen 25:22-23; Exod 04:11; Exod 21:22-24; Exod 23:07
Pray for Godly leaders.
Thank God that there were found men and women to stand for life on Tuesday.
Pray the House of Lords will overturn the new clause. But above all, pray for an end to abortion in our land.
Pray for an MP to introduce a Texas-style ‘Heartbeat’ law.
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Good article. People should be allowed to peacefully protest in a civil democracy. One more step against Britain’s history as a Christian nation
the link to see how mp’s voted is not working.
Fixed now, thanks!
Wonderful!
I asked the the Head of Patient care at our local GP’s practice if we could could leave pro-lfe leaflets out.
She replied that their policy was only to allow NHS leaflets out
I told her that I was deeply sadenned by this, as the baby’s rights were being ignored
However, in response to an ealier request, they have removed a Marie Stopes advertisement
Persistance is needed
Jeff. Riches
Link to petition is broken!
Thanks. It’s fixed now.
This amendement can be construed as something of an own goal, on the part of the abortionists who clamoured for it. For does not the abortionist himself employ staff who do all most the following: “(a) seeks to influence, (b) persistently, continuously or repeatedly occupies [the premises], (c) impedes or threatens [others, to protect their trade], (d) intimidates or harasses [others, to protect their trade], (e) advises or persuades, attempts to advise or persuade, or otherwise expresses opinion, (f) informs or attempts to inform about abortion services by any means, including, without limitation, graphic, physical, verbal or written means, or (g) sketches, photographs, records, stores, broadcasts, or transmits images, audio, likenesses or personal data of any person without express consent [if the abortion premises have CCTV]”?
I am sure that we can expect militant demonstrations again the Public Order Bill, and Act, if it is enacted, in a variety of locations. These demonstrations won’t violate th Act merely because they happen to be demonstrations against the Act, regardless of where they are held. If the Act is enacted with this amendment in place, some of the most effective and aptly-sited demonstrations against the Act should take place outside abortion faciities, where certain of the Act’s consequences are most severe.
We should therefore regard this “own goal” amendment as an opportunity rather than a setback. I have never attended an abortion facility myself in order to offer information to those considering accessing abortion services, because I acknowledge am poorly qualified for such important work, which I have therefore left to others. But now that the abortionists have succeeded in making the vicinity of their premises an apt venue for a political demonstration, against a Bill or Act that jolly well deserved demonstrations to be mounted against it even before this latest amendment was made to it, people like myself have acquired a useful role outside abortion facilities which we didn’t have before, a role which we will be able to fulfil without ever committing the offence of “interference with access to or provision of abortion services”.
At last mps do something sensible and stop women from being harrased by thugs and lunatics.
thug (noun) a violent person, especially a criminal.
(HISTORICAL: a member of a group or organization of robbers and assassins in India who waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travellers, and stole their belongings. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s.)
That sounds very like an abortionist, to be honest. Someone murdering a fellow human being in what should be the safest place on earth. And the lunacy is permitting that to be done and not expecting judgment to fall:
Job 4:8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
Good points John. This daft law needs testing, I wonder what the police will do if we individually walk past an abortion centre singing to ourselves, whistling a hymn, praying and reciting scripture? What about standing at the edge of the buffer zone? This will work to our advantage, we will not stop, we will just find newer and more novel ways to witness against abortion murder. What this does is draw attention to the the mass abortion crime. Don’t forget HEK-293 the active ingredient in the so called vaccines that don’t actually work.
Just to add I and four other Christian Voice supporters went out to Parliament Square to witness against the buffer zone anti free speech law. We were the only group there as far as I could tell (If others were there, apologies but I did not see you). So Christian Voice was the only pro life group getting out to oppose this. Well done CV! We were there, we spoke out!
SPUC has just sent me an email where we can write an email to a selected Peer because this abusive amendment will be debated in the House of Lords on 1.11.22. The date is coming up quickly so get emailing to have this amended out if existence.
We can add our voices. Please forward the email.