- Feb 5, 2002
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The police force in Birmingham has again interrogated Isabel Vaughan-Spruce about what goes on inside her head outside an abortion centre.
In footage obtained by ADF UK, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation, a police community support officer presses Vaughan-Spruce as to the nature of her silent thoughts while within the vicinity of an abortion centre-related “buffer zone”. The officer, employed by West Midlands Police, specifically asks Vaughan-Spruce if she is “here to pray for the lives of unborn children”. Vaughan-Spruce attempts to explain that she was “just simply thinking, silently in my head”.
Vaughan-Spruce, a volunteer who has provided charitable support for new mothers and women in crisis pregnancies for over twenty years, prays regularly, in silence, on the public street near an abortion centre, notes ADF UK. Vaughan-Spruce has now faced police interference on multiple occasions and been arrested twice on the basis of her silent thoughts and was fully vindicated in March 2023 when Birmingham Magistrates’ Court returned a not guilty verdict.
“I’ve been arrested twice and fully vindicated by a court verdict that upheld my freedom of thought, and yet even still, officers continue to interrogate me for the simple act of thinking prayerful thoughts on a public street,” Vaughan-Spruce says. “This isn’t 1984, but 2023. No matter one’s beliefs on abortion, nobody should be punished merely for the prayers they hold inside their head.”
In September 2022, Birmingham local authorities installed the “buffer zone”, which forbids any expression of “approval or disapproval” of abortion, and prohibits making offers of charitable support to women, says ADF UK. Since the enforcement of the censorship zone, Vaughan-Spruce has limited her activity within the zone to silent prayer.
Continued below.
In footage obtained by ADF UK, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation, a police community support officer presses Vaughan-Spruce as to the nature of her silent thoughts while within the vicinity of an abortion centre-related “buffer zone”. The officer, employed by West Midlands Police, specifically asks Vaughan-Spruce if she is “here to pray for the lives of unborn children”. Vaughan-Spruce attempts to explain that she was “just simply thinking, silently in my head”.
Vaughan-Spruce, a volunteer who has provided charitable support for new mothers and women in crisis pregnancies for over twenty years, prays regularly, in silence, on the public street near an abortion centre, notes ADF UK. Vaughan-Spruce has now faced police interference on multiple occasions and been arrested twice on the basis of her silent thoughts and was fully vindicated in March 2023 when Birmingham Magistrates’ Court returned a not guilty verdict.
“I’ve been arrested twice and fully vindicated by a court verdict that upheld my freedom of thought, and yet even still, officers continue to interrogate me for the simple act of thinking prayerful thoughts on a public street,” Vaughan-Spruce says. “This isn’t 1984, but 2023. No matter one’s beliefs on abortion, nobody should be punished merely for the prayers they hold inside their head.”
In September 2022, Birmingham local authorities installed the “buffer zone”, which forbids any expression of “approval or disapproval” of abortion, and prohibits making offers of charitable support to women, says ADF UK. Since the enforcement of the censorship zone, Vaughan-Spruce has limited her activity within the zone to silent prayer.
Continued below.
