The prosecution of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce should trouble you whatever you think about abortion. A state which begins policing silent prayer has crossed a line no pluralistic democracy should approach.
Britain has reached a peculiar and rather sinister point in its political development when a middle-aged Catholic woman can stand silently on a public street, say nothing, obstruct nobody, threaten nobody and nevertheless find herself hauled before a criminal court because of what the authorities believe she may have been doing inside her own head. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce appeared before Birmingham Magistrates’ Court this week and pleaded not guilty to five charges arising from five occasions on which she is alleged to have breached the abortion ‘buffer zone’ around a clinic in Kings Norton. The prosecution alleges that, by standing within the zone and silently praying, she intended to influence, or was reckless as to whether she might influence, someone accessing abortion services. Her case is expected to go to trial in January.
