UK – Police ‘can’t decide’ if anti-abortion campaigner should be charged for silent prayer

Catholic charity worker says someone’s thoughts ‘cannot possibly be a crime’ and her ‘punishment has clearly been the process’

Martin Evans
30 November 2025

Police and prosecutors are “frozen with indecision” over whether to charge a woman for silently praying near an abortion clinic, campaigners have claimed.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic charity worker, is being investigated by West Midlands Police for allegedly breaching a new buffer-zone law intended to prevent people protesting near abortion centres.

Continued: https://archive.is/7NIzF
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/30/police-no-decide-anti-abortion-campaigner-charged/)

30.11.2025

News

ADF International

anti-choice protesters

buffer zones

Independent Office for Police Conduct

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce

London anti-abortion march fuelled by US ‘hate group’

Over half of speakers on London’s March for Life’s programme have links with US Christian right group Alliance Defending Freedom.

By Alice McCool
Sep 5, 2025

A major anti-abortion march taking place in London this week is being heavily influenced by US Christian right group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), raising concerns about the import of anti-gender fundamentalism to the UK.

Good Law Project can reveal that over half of the speakers in London’s March for Life 2025 itinerary have direct links to ADF, an Arizona-based Christian legal organisation that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group”.

Continued: https://goodlawproject.org/london-anti-abortion-march-fuelled-by-us-hate-group/

Prayer and prosecutions: the US ‘hate group’ waging war over Britain’s abortion clinic buffer zones

Anti-abortion campaigners cheer as JD Vance brands safe zones an attack on ‘liberties of religious Britons’

Shanti Das
Sun 16 Feb 2025

Rachael Clarke remembers life before buffer zones. Almost every day, the head of staff at the UK’s biggest abortion provider would get emails from staff worried about protesters outside clinics – and women crying in the waiting room.

Some of the protesters had huge placards with graphic images of foetuses. Others held candlelit vigils and said prayers. One scattered baby clothes in the bushes. “We had everything from people telling women that having an abortion was putting their baby in a meat grinder to people following nurses down the road in the dark telling them they were killing babies,” says Clarke.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/16/prayer-and-prosecutions-the-us-hate-group-waging-war-over-britains-abortion-clinic-buffer-zones

UK – Abortion clinic payout woman shocked at prayer arrest

Aug 21, 2024

A woman arrested after praying outside an abortion clinic has received a payout from police. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce from Worcestershire was accused of breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) outside the clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham, but the charges were dropped last year.

She said her aim was to be "a peaceful and prayerful presence for women in crisis pregnancies". She received £13,000 from West Midlands Police, which said it settled her civil claim "without any admission of liability", adding the city council brought in the PSPO to deter protesters.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gze361j7xo

21.08.2024

News

Alliance Defending Freedom UK

anti-choice harassment

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice protesters

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce

March for Life UK

Public Spaces Protection Order

reproductive coercion

Europe

United Kingdom

Anti-choice

UK – The battle for abortion buffer zones

A 2023 law banning protests around clinics remains unenforced amid dispute over 'silent prayer'

By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
Aug 20, 2024

In the UK, protests outside clinics or hospitals that perform abortions are, theoretically, banned within a 150-metre "buffer zone". But the legislation has yet to be enforced in England and Wales, and draft guidance published by the last government controversially made allowances for silent prayer within the so-called "safe access zones".

Now, the Home Office is considering reviewing the guidance, reported The Daily Telegraph. Ministers will also review a provision which allows for "consensual" communication with those entering or leaving the premises, which protesters have "interpreted" as permission to hand out leaflets or talk to patients. Abortion rights activists and healthcare providers hope the review will result in both activities being banned as part of Labour's commitment to finally enforce the buffer zones.

Continued: https://theweek.com/health/the-battle-for-abortion-buffer-zones

‘If we can do it, you can do it’: US anti-abortion groups ramp up activities in UK

Emboldened by victories at home, some of the most prominent American anti-abortion groups are exporting their tactics overseas

Katherine Stewart
Sun 2 Apr 2023

Anti-abortion groups are stepping up efforts to spread US-style abortion politics to the UK, ramping up spending with the ambition of shaking up political life beyond American borders.

Fresh off their historic victory in bringing about the end of the constitutional right to abortion in the US, these groups are importing familiar tactics, including public protests and demonstrations, anti-abortion counseling centers or so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”, and the cultivation of ties with clerical leaders.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/us-anti-abortion-groups-uk-far-right

Is Europe next? Concerns over abortion rights rise after Supreme Court overturns Roe

“The fact it’s become a talking point is a massive step forward. Whatever anyone’s views are on abortion, it’s not helpful if we can’t talk about it,” one abortion rights opponent said.

Aug. 7, 2022
By Patrick Smith

LONDON — Abortion rights opponents have long been stuck on the fringes of politics in much of Western Europe. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has many in the movement hoping that is about to change.

That abortion was thrust into the headlines and onto the agenda has been a big step forward, said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a co-director of March for Life U.K., an annual event in September in London.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/europe-concerns-abortion-rights-rise-supreme-court-overturns-roe-rcna38651