Pro-life activist arrested for praying silently near an abortion facility

a reply to: TheRedneck

You think the police has handled this badly I think they did like they use to... She got no special treatment, is that what surprises you?

Refusing a police request to vacant the place, will never turn out well for you.

a reply to: Terpene

Responded like just another authoritarian leftist. You are all the same. OMG that woman was PRAYING SILENTLY??? SHE IS A CRIMINAL... Meanwhile you claim "but pro-abortion/choice protest are peaceful..." Peaceful my arse...

Are you a CCP agent? is that it? Only CCP dictators would claim someone "SILENTLY PRAYING" is a criminal breaking a law...

There are quite a few videos on it on Youtube now, she really was not doing anything offensive to anyone and the police officers involved in my opinion have both wasted tax payer money and are not fit to do there jobs, in fact they need to be retrained or dismissed in my humble opinion as there actions give police everywhere in the UK a bad name and they acted like jobsworth's with nothing better to do than harass a woman whom was doing no harm and not even acting in any way offensive to anyone.

The general consensus is that the police are acting as thought police on this one, they have turned British civil liberty's on there head and are turning what was once the safest and most free country in the world into a true dystopia.







This is in my very strong opinion ANTI CHRISTIAN ABUSE AND SUPPRESSION OF CHRISTIAN RIGHTS and it is worth saying that generations of old bobby's are probably turning in there graves in disgust at these officers in particular the one that pushed this arrest the one questioning her when in fact he neither had valid reason to do so and nor did he have any actual reason to arrest her.

Should a court find against this woman the anger will escalate as this is definitely an illegal act by the officers.

The protection order on the area was meant to stop youths' and anti social behaviour not to be used to persecute Christians in what is still though sadly less every day a Christian country.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Heh... but I was spot on and I abhor them equally even in this thread...

The facts speak for themselves, you trying to pull the victim card is the funny thing here, as it's straight out of the Antifa handbooks.

Let's get that indignation to boiling point... Can't wait to see you fools set the stage together for that last nail in our coffins...

a reply to: Terpene

But this was bound to happen wasn't it?

Some have strongly argued that this is specifically an anti-Christian thing. Some have outright identified their displeasure specifically with Christian protest activity. Even you are equating it with Antifa protest activity, who to our reckoning is dedicated to violence.

Are you really surprised that Christians would adopt a defensive reaction?

Sadly, this is about something other than Christianity... not all Pro-life activists are Christians. But that's all you have focused on. Whether intentionally or not, you have usurped any approach that speaks to the abortion topic, or the 'generic ordinance' in deference to your displeasure (or dare I say bias) against Christians. This focus evoked a raucous response, and I wonder if it could really be possible that it was the entire point of the shifted focus...

It is a circumstance that the subject was a Christian, and it appeared from the thrust of your objections that it was Christians you object to.

In my own defense of the OP, this was about a law and its application, not any particular group and how hateful we can be about them.

The stage is set. Proceed.

a reply to: Maxmars

But this is par for the course.

The left behaves as though the only possible objection anyone could have to abortion is strictly on religious grounds. That isn't true, and there are sound reasons to believe that science supports the notion that we become human beings will before some mystical, heretofore unexplained event that occurs the moment our small persons hit the outside air. In fact, it becomes leftists who start actually objecting to abortion restrictions *on spiritual grounds* when this side of things is brought up.

The crux of the entire argument is that a human being does have an unalienable right to life no matter where it is, and abortion seems to violate this principle for matters of convenience in a majority of cases when in almost every instance, self-control exercised by the mother and father, although unfun, would have prevented the circumstance with no loss of human life.

Leftists are anti-self control, especially when it curbs their pleasure impulses.

a reply to: ketsuko

I appreciated the metaphor evoked by comedian Bill Burr when during a performance I saw he likens it to cake baking.

I am no comedian so I will paraphrase here:

Imagine it's your birthday, and you decide to make yourself a cake to celebrate.
After the mixing the batter, and whatever else... you place it in the oven...
Shortly after (before you take the cake out of the oven) someone comes in, removes the pan and tosses it on the floor.

You object about your cake being ruined and destroyed...
The answer given is... "That wasn't a cake."

... But it would have been ...

Sorry if I messed that joke up, Mr. Burr.

a reply to: Maxmars

There's a reason why the cake is in the oven and not the batter though. Recipes always tell us to put it in the oven, not the batter. It is the cake.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: Terpene

Responded like just another authoritarian leftist. You are all the same. OMG that woman was PRAYING SILENTLY??? SHE IS A CRIMINAL... Meanwhile you claim "but pro-abortion/choice protest are peaceful..." Peaceful my arse...

Are you a CCP agent? is that it? Only CCP dictators would claim someone "SILENTLY PRAYING" is a criminal breaking a law...

If she had prayed inside the Starbucks across the street or sat on a bus bench and quietly fingered her rosary beads, this dialogue wouldn't be happening because the police would have no reason to approach her. She wanted to be arrested and they obliged her. The same thing would happen to me if I was smoking inside a clinic and acting like I'm the victim for breaching policy.

a reply to: Terpene

It wasn't a request to vacate the place. They did not arrest her until she said she might have been praying. The police could not even determine if she was praying; she had to admit the possibility.

My concern is that any Christian who walks with Jesus could not answer any differently. Therefore, this is nothing more than asking "Are you Christian?" Only someone who claims Christianity without understanding Christianity (and there are many, I will admit) could honestly answer "no."

She was literally arrested for praying, as specified in her bail conditions and indicated by the questions asked and their timing compared to her arrest, which equates to being arrested for being a Christian. There is nothing you can do or say to change that. Nothing. All your attempts to twist this into something else are doing nothing for your case except proving that you are fine with arrest on religious grounds.

What if atheists were being arrested for being atheists? That has happened in the past, you know. Do you really want those days back?

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Terpene

It wasn't a request to vacate the place. They did not arrest her until she said she might have been praying. The police could not even determine if she was praying; she had to admit the possibility.

My concern is that any Christian who walks with Jesus could not answer any differently. Therefore, this is nothing more than asking "Are you Christian?" Only someone who claims Christianity without understanding Christianity (and there are many, I will admit) could honestly answer "no."

She was literally arrested for praying, as specified in her bail conditions and indicated by the questions asked and their timing compared to her arrest, which equates to being arrested for being a Christian. There is nothing you can do or say to change that. Nothing. All your attempts to twist this into something else are doing nothing for your case except proving that you are fine with arrest on religious grounds.

What if atheists were being arrested for being atheists? That has happened in the past, you know. Do you really want those days back?

TheRedneck

"Are you christian?" "Yes sir"

"Do you belong to a congregation?" "Yes sir"

"Is their church on this road?" "No sir"

"Then go to church or go home" "Yes sir"

Is how that dialogue should play out.

What if atheists were being arrested for being atheists? That has happened in the past, you know. Do you really want those days back?

A protection order is a protection order.

The director of an anti-abortion group is facing prosecution after praying in front of an abortion clinic in Birmingham. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce of UK March for Life is accused of breaching a public space protection order – but she insists she was only exercising her freedom of religion ‘inside the privacy of my own mind’.

Vaughan-Spruce is not accused of harassing anyone. The 45-year-old simply said a prayer inside an exclusion zone. It’s come to something, hasn’t it, when you can be prosecuted after praying, silently or otherwise, under English law? But, of course, the warnings this might happen were there from the outset.

So there you see opportunity, motive and contempt. A conveniently situated abortion clinic and self professed director of anti abortion activities daring the city to make an example of her, because she's not oblivious but she is reckless.

PSPOs replaced previous legislation and introduced wider discretionary powers to deal with nuisances or problems which harm the local community's quality of life. An order is intended to ensure that people can use and enjoy public spaces, living safely from anti-social behaviour.

Public space protection order

Per the United States Department of Defense, an exclusion zone is a territory where an authority prohibits specific activities in a specific geographic area (see military exclusion zone) ... With regard to protesting, an exclusion zone is an area that protesters are legally prohibited from protesting in.

Exclusion zones often exist around seats of government and abortion clinics. As a result of protests by the Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, 29 states and the US Congress created exclusion zones around soldiers' funerals. In 2005, the Parliament of the United Kingdom created a one kilometre exclusion zone around itself.

en.wikipedia.org...

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Maxmars

Arrested for being Christian.

She wasn't arrested for praying, that's simply what she was doing at the time of her arrest.

She was arrested because the abortion facility was in a specially designated exclusion area where any form of pro-life activity is prohibited, and she was carrying out a vigil. She'd have been arrested if she was sitting on a chair drinking coffee, or doing sudoku.

The problem was simply that she was somewhere that she'd been expressly forbidden from being. Not that she was praying.

a reply to: Maxmars

Would you feel the same if I told you that she was a Buddhist?

a reply to: TzarChasm

"Are you christian?" "Yes sir"

"Do you belong to a congregation?" "Yes sir"

"Is their church on this road?" "No sir"

"Then go to church or go home" "Yes sir"

Is how that dialogue should play out.

So in your story; is it that Christians should be confined to their homes or their churches; OR is it Christian praying should only occur in one's home or in a church?

Why is a police officer even asking if someone's is religious status; or what congregation they belong to or were one's place of worship? Sounds like irrelevant information a police officer doesn't need to know and no reason to ask.

As an Atheist; its creepy that society is normalizing religious litmus tests for people to be out in public. Once that becomes mainstream its we the minority that always get the worst of it. Why are so many chearing this on?

a reply to: TheRedneck

It takes a special kind of stupid to do something in an area where that is specially prohibited...

But we agree it's a slippery slope. you'll have to admit the pro life bunch has had a significant hand to get that slipery slope in place... This buffer zone is exactly because of them and the pro choice bunch.
Stick your opinion somewhere where you don't bother people...
This hasn't been put into place because of some praying, but because of far more provocative actions, by both proponents of this political battle.
she is a political activist, that happens to be a praying christian and breaking directives of a place specially put there to keep these activists away...

Think you're a smart-ass and can go there and play victim when you get treated for what you are...

Again this buffer zone is the only thing that allows them to take action on the grounds they did.
she and her ilk had a hand in making that buffer a necessity, because people felt uncomfortable by the presence of both pro life and pro choice groups, propagating their political crap.

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Maxmars

Arrested for being Christian.

She wasn't arrested for praying, that's simply what she was doing at the time of her arrest.

She was arrested because the abortion facility was in a specially designated exclusion area where any form of pro-life activity is prohibited, and she was carrying out a vigil. She'd have been arrested if she was sitting on a chair drinking coffee, or doing sudoku.

The problem was simply that she was somewhere that she'd been expressly forbidden from being. Not that she was praying.

So she wasn't arrested for being Christian?

She was arrested for being Christian in a public place Christians aren't allowed to be?

a reply to: dandandat2

You can't be arrested for simply being a Christian in the UK. It's State Religion is Christianity (except Scotland because they have to be different for the sake of it) and the King is both head of state and head of the church. The very idea anyone believe such a thing is just preposterous.

originally posted by: Ohanka
a reply to: dandandat2

You can't be arrested for simply being a Christian in the UK. It's State Religion is Christianity (except Scotland because they have to be different for the sake of it) and the King is both head of state and head of the church. The very idea anyone believe such a thing is just preposterous.

So then its the latter; arrested for being Christian in an area where Christians are not allowed to be?

I despise religion and superstition in all of its forms. However, that's just my own belief, and other people are entitled to theirs. If she was just standing there doing nothing then why should she be arrested? If she was causing actual trouble that's one thing. But if she was just praying, then that's not right, we should all be free to live how we want providing nobody gets hurt. There has to be more to the story than just a thought crime. But, knowing how things are going in 2022, maybe there isn't.

However these claims of religious persecution are a self-inflicted prophecy. It wasn't many years ago where these pious religious people in this country, and still do in others, control the narrative and go as far as to imprison and even execute people who question them or don't tow the line. The sins of their religious systems are still fresh in the memories of people. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, they don't like it now they know what it is like to be on the receiving end. They are being beaten with their own stick.

originally posted by: AaarghZombies
a reply to: Maxmars

Would you feel the same if I told you that she was a Buddhist?

What would you imagine the answer will be, "yes," "no?"
How, in your mind, did you anticipate responding?

Should I say "no'?" Should I say that Buddhism is not relevant to the discussion for some reason or other? That they do not pray to any god? That they don't protest, or at least not at abortion clinics? That somehow, they aren't subject to the inquiry made of the subject of this thread.

Should I say "yes?" That like any other person in the world, that their prayer is as 'rightful and righteous' as any other persons'? That in this regard there is no distinction between the "who" of a prayer and the "for what." That a Buddhist has as much of a right to pray anywhere?

How many traps did you set there? Maybe four, five?

In my view this discussion, or should I say your contention about it, isn't about prayer... it's about the law. You had the stronger case sticking with that. Yet you repeatedly provide bias towards anyone who feels that the application of this law merits moral reflection; because: Public praying is now a trigger for many in your culture.

You repeatedly recharacterize the elements of the "crime" as if you are the ultimate arbiter of the event.

Originally, she was protesting, then she was blocking and harassing. Now you posit that she was in a vigil... yet nowhere I did I see any of that established as facts of the crime. If you want to demonize her activity you could just say so. That the reason for your objection is not because of what she did today, but what she allegedly did some other day - never mind that if what she did before was so egregious, why wasn't she arrested then?

I accept the need for order in a society. I understand that laws are meant to be a protection for the common good. I suspect you believe that my objections to the enforcement, and the way it took form, will all be based upon the promotion of anarchy, a world where people line up to "pray at you willie nillie,' despite your disbelief.

[I understand that you may not be from the UK... but a I am risking the assumption for these next few paragraphs.]

Presuming you are from the UK, you have experienced the years-long steady drumbeat of anti-theist talking points I have seen eagerly promulgated by your popular media. That particular affliction hasn't come over the ocean, perhaps it will yet. But I haven't the bitter outlook about other people's practices of faith as an offense to social order. We have some of those attention whores here too, but fortunately, we haven't yet reached the point of the popular press publicly villainizing all public religious activity as a social detriment.

Our two cultures are very similar in many ways, and very different in others. I will not decry your legal system and law enforcement, nor will I presume to ask that it be changed. But in my culture, we can and will discuss things that might make you uncomfortable. This must be one of them.

Just to offer respect to your question, such as it was...

If she were a Buddhist, I couldn't imagine how that might change the facts of the case. (Except she didn't set herself on fire in protest... but then that, today, might be seen as stupidity and violent endangerment of the public.)