UK Abortion Buffer Zone ‘Absurdity’! Praying Inside One’s Home Could Now Be a Risk
LONDON, England – While many already knew about the “thought crime” case against a British Army veteran, Vice President JD Vance brought it to the world’s attention again in a speech to the Munich Security Conference on February 14.
“A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connora 51-year-old physiotherapist and an army veteran with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own,” Vance said.
Smith-Connor was convicted last fall of praying within an abortion clinic “buffer zone.” When he was approached by police officers, they asked, “What is the nature of your prayer today?”
Smith-Connor answered, “What is the nature of my prayer? I’m praying for my son,” making the charge against him what many are calling a “thought crime.” We met Smith-Connor at a church in Southampton, England, where he told us of a dream that led him into the pro-life movement, a dream in which he was butchering a baby.
He recounted, “I was carving up this baby, as if I was carving up a Sunday roast. I didn’t have any sense of guilt or anything, and it was no feeling of anything as I was doing this. When I woke up, it was like a nightmare in reverse. I was so horrified because I had carved up this child who I knew was my son. And it horrified me that I hadn’t felt anything as I did it. And over the following days, I came to realize it related to an abortion that I’d paid for two decades earlier. That abortion hadn’t even crossed my mind. But God knew that that was sitting on my conscience. He knew that I wasn’t going to figure out for myself and that that needed to be cleansed. So, I feel that he gave me that vision, that dream, to wake me up to what had happened.”
He began to go to abortion clinics to pray for his son and would eventually be charged with a crime for praying.
Smith-Connor said police officers “decided from that because they knew that my son had died in an abortion, that therefore, I was in breach of the buffer zone. And they asked me to leave the area. I declined because I don’t think that prayer can ever be considered a criminal act or Illegal. I didn’t approach anyone. I didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t even look at anyone. And in fact, if you’ve been in the clinic, you wouldn’t have seen me from the clinic because I was behind a tree, out of line of sight of the clinic entrance.”
MORE: Is ‘Orwellian’ Britain ‘Sleepwalking into a Totalitarian Future’?
The United Kingdom’s new buffer zone law makes it “…illegal for anyone to do anything that intentionally or recklessly influences someone’s decision to use abortion services… The law will apply within a 150 metre radius of the abortion service provider.”
Lois McLatchie Miller with Alliance Defending Freedom International says the government’s use of the word “influence” has created a very broad law that can potentially be used against private conversations and even a person’s thoughts and prayers.
Miller told us, “By using a word like ‘influence,’ it’s very unclear what the law means. What about a mother asking her daughter, ‘Are you sure?’ Is that an ‘influence’? What about a friend who’s offering support to a woman who’s considering continuing her pregnancy? Is that ‘influence’?”
Livia Tossici-Bolta 63-year-old retired medical scientist from Bournemouth, England, was also convicted under the law last week for holding up a sign reading “here to talk, if you want” within an abortion clinic buffer zone and talking to women who approached her.
In Scotland, citizens living within buffer zones were sent letters warning that they could violate the law while inside their own homes. Some think it could include praying near a window if a woman seeking an abortion walks by.
READ: Could New Scottish Law Ban ‘Private Prayer’ in Homes Near Abortion Facilities? JD Vance Thinks So
Adam Smith-Connor said he’s grateful to Vice President JD Vance for defending him before world leaders.
Smith-Connor is a British Army vet who risked his life in Afghanistan. This case makes him reflect on the personal price he paid for freedom and a close friend who died to protect the very rights that his government is now taking away.
“I’ve got a profound sense of sadness for our nation. The fact that we have plummeted to such a depth so quickly is truly shocking to me. I believe in the Bible and what the Bible says, and I live that out in my life. And when the civil laws step outside of the laws of God, then I’m to follow God’s laws. And the absurdity of being put on trial for the contents of your mind, the contents of your prayers. It just has no place in a liberal, free, democratic society.”
“And yet, here we are.”
An appeal of Adam’s conviction has been set for July.
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