British bishops warn new ‘authoritarian’ legislation will penalise people of faith

Upcoming legislation from the UK’s new Labour government that would ban any form of protest or activism around abortion facilities has been condemned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

It warns “such legislation remains deeply concerning as a threat to freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion for people of all faiths and none”.

Speaking for the conference, Bishop John Sherrington, the Lead Bishop for Life Issues, says legislation contained in section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023 will unduly impact people of faith through the curtailment of freedom of speech and by criminalising a range of activities. 

The UK Government is enacting new legislation from 31 October that would bar protests – which includes silent prayer – within a so-called buffer zone of 150 metres of a clinic or facility providing abortion services. The scope of its application includes making it illegal for someone to “intentionally influence someone’s decision to use abortion services”, reports the Daily Telegraph.

As a result, activities that could be criminalised as a result of the Bill – should any of these be deemed to influence or interfere with access to the clinic – potentially include prayer (whether audible or silent), thought, peaceful presence, consensual communication and offers of practical support to women in vulnerable situations.

Bishop Sherrington said: “As the Catholic Bishops’ Conference repeatedly stated during the passage of the Public Order Bill last year, ‘safe access zone’ legislation is unnecessary and disproportionate. We condemn all harassment and intimidation of women and hold that, as was accepted in a Home Office Review, there are already laws and mechanisms in place to protect women from such behaviour. 

“In practice, and despite any other intention, this legislation constitutes discrimination and disproportionately affects people of faith. Religious freedom is the foundational freedom of any free and democratic society, essential for the flourishing and realisation of dignity of every human person. Religious freedom includes the right to manifest one’s private beliefs in public through witness, prayer and charitable outreach, including outside abortion facilities. 

“As well as being unnecessary and disproportionate, we have deep concerns around the practical effectiveness of this legislation, particularly given the lack of clarity in relation to the practice of private prayer and offers of help within ‘safe access zones’. 

“As Pope Francis has reminded us, ‘a healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatising religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques.

“This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. By legislating for and implementing so-called ‘safe access zones’, the UK Government has taken an unnecessary and disproportionate step backwards in the protection of religious and civic freedoms in England and Wales.” 

RELATED: Blow to UK pro-life movement as silent prayer at abortion clinics again faces ban

In a statement made earlier this year on the same issue, Bishop Sherrington highlighted that the Bishops’ Conference “has reiterated our concern that this proposed legislation, despite any other intent, constitutes discrimination and disproportionately affects people of faith”.

He noted: “Politicians went so far as to vote down an amendment which would have protected silent prayer and consensual communication in such spaces, and that would have initiated a review into whether such legislation was needed.”

He also cited a 2018 Home Officer Review which found that there were already adequate laws in place to prevent the harassment of women, adding “there is little, if any, evidence that vigil participants engage in these behaviours”.

He continued: “We have also stressed that its implications could extend beyond the perimeters of a ‘safe access zone’ and it raises serious questions about the state’s powers in relation to the individual in a free society, both those with faith and those without.”

Writing in her Substack column about the Rise of the New Censorship in the United Kingdom, Alex Klaushofer, who has previously written for the Herald, and is the author of a book about Albania’s authoritarian experience, notes that “what’s most significant about these developments is how they cross a line, the first moving the authority of the state internally, to the province of the mind, the second entitling it to regulate what citizens say in private”.

She adds: “Ultimately, of course, the attempt to censor human expression is futile. It is not possible for the government to retain permanent control of what people, in all their emotionalism, creativity and diversity, think and say.”

But, she adds, “societies can lose years, generations, while they re-learn this lesson, times which bring suffering to those who speak out and suffocation for everyone else”.

Photo: People attend a pro-life vigil on the street outside a Marie Stopes clinic in Ealing, London, England, 21 April 2018. (Photo credit should read ALICE RITCHIE/AFP via Getty Images.)

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