This week, the arrest of British Catholic woman for ‘praying’ outside an abortion clinic has attracted international attention. However, the jailing of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, director of anti-abortion group March for Life UK, is neither surprising nor particularly rare as a denial of free speech in Great Britain. While this form of “protest” is uncommon as the basis for an arrest, free speech has been in a free fall in the UK for years. It is also a cautionary tale for those in the United States, which is facing arguably the largest anti-free speech movement in its history.
Pictures from Birmingham show Vaughan-Spruce, 45, simply standing near the abortion clinic silently praying when an officer confronts her. She was not blocking access or displaying any protest signs or material. Nevertheless, she was arrested, jailed, interrogated, and ultimately charged with four counts of violating the abortion clinic “buffer zone.”
According to reports, the West Midlands Police officer asked her “are you praying?” She responded “I might be praying in my head, but not out loud.”
That was it. She was arrested for praying “in her head” near an abortion clinic.
A recent order from September 7 made clear that praying near an abortion clinic is now a criminal act in the country. The Birmingham City Council order says that prohibited acts includes “but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling.”
Various individuals heralded the arrest. Dr. John Michael Leslie went on Twitter to declare “No, you’re in violation of it you repeatedly harass women going to a Family Planning Clinic who might be asking for Abortion Advice. “Praying in her head” is the spin from her supporters.”
However, legally, that is itself a dangerous pin. She was not arrested for past conduct but her current conduct, which was praying in her head.
Another poster objected that “It’s so obvious she’s martyring herself in the glare of the public as a way of publicising her beliefs, she knowingly went into that area to get arrested. You must think we’re all crackers.”
Indeed, though “crackers” does not quite capture the free speech crisis in the UK. This is not the first thought crime prosecuted in the country.
Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
“Toxic ideology” also appears to be the target in Ireland with the recently proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) law. It would criminalize the possession of material deemed hateful. The law is a free speech nightmare. The law makes it a crime of possession of harmful material” as well as “condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.” The law expressly states the intent to combat “forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.”
What is so striking about the law is that it allows for the prosecution of citizens for “preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.” That could sweep deeply into not just political but literary expression.
The expansion of such prosecutions to thought crimes is a natural extension of the anti-free speech movement that took hold of much of Europe decades ago. The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police teeshirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
Once you start as a government to criminalize speech, you end up on a slippery slope of censorship. What constitutes hate speech or “malicious communications” remains a highly subjective matter and we have seen a steady expansion of prohibited terms and words and gestures.
It is easy for Americans to wave off such European prosecutions by pointing to our First Amendment. However, there is a growing movement in the United States to replicate such European laws. Indeed, Democratic leaders such as Hillary Clinton have enlisted European governments to force Twitter to censor fellow citizens. Likewise, Democratic members have pushed for a new law that could be used to crackdown specifically on right-wing groups based on their ideology.
The United Kingdom is an example of the slippery slope of speech criminalization that inevitably took them to “thought crimes,” even criminal prayers. These cases should be a wake up for all who value free speech. If such prosecutions stand, free speech literally does not have a prayer in the Western world.
The purpose behind regulating speech, is to regulate thought, and the penalties for speaking freely are directly proportional to the degree to which thinking freely threatens the aims of the tyrants at hand. Marxism has been repackaged into critical race theory (CRT) using America’s one great undeniable sin, slavery, as its foundation. This is in accordance with Alinsky’s thirteenth and last Rule for Radicals, “Pick your target, freeze it, polarize it, personalize it.” Radical leftists freeze reasoned debate by citing America’s long-past support of slavery, then personalize and polarize it with the utterly absurd claim, “If you do not agree with me, you are a Racist.” Never mind their own far more recent history of tyranny and genocide via Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. Americans, ignorant of the history of Marxism courtesy of government schools and the NEA, are CRT’s useful idiots, accepting such nonsense at face value and willingly surrendering their rights, blissfully unaware that they are volunteering themselves and future generations for the gulags.
You attack people who you assert believe “If you do not agree with me you are a Racist” by replying “If you don’t agree with me you support genocide, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot” – a bit of hypocracy don’t you think? Some wing nuts, ignorant of the history of Marxism have no problem with Trump loving the great role model leader of North Korea, and the former KGB officer in the Kremlin who in turn praises Stalin. They are just blissfule idiots worshipping autoritarianism. They also can’t distinquish between CRT, Marxism, the Bolshevism and the US Democratic party. Sam Adams probably believes Thomas Jefferson was a “commie”. follower of his great hero Alinsky. Stalin, Pol Pot, Marx are well known and well hated, but Alinsky is some minor organizer who died half a century ago, and is only remembered by a few right wing zealots.
This is the difference between being a citizen and being a subject.
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]”
― Harry S. Truman
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]”
― Harry S. Truman
This is right out of Kafka or Orwell.
We need more Brits to go get arrested for praying silently. If ever there was a hill to die on, this is it. Brits, my prayers are with you as you struggle for religious freedom and freedom of speech.
The United States is unique on the planet, as having the most freedom of speech. The Left seeks to erode those rights. They’ll use examples of speech most people disagree with, but once they gain the authority to police speech, they will abuse that authority to oppress dissent.
It is precisely the speech that most disagree with. It is hate speech that must be defended at all costs.
It is the right of Nazi’s to march through Skokie, or people to use the N word, that must be defended.
There is no such thing as speech that offends no one.
Both lies and the truth are equally capable of deep offense.
Karen S: this didn’t go down like Turley says:
“Nevertheless, she was arrested, jailed, interrogated, and ultimately charged with four counts of violating the abortion clinic “buffer zone.”
According to reports, the West Midlands Police officer asked her “are you praying?” She responded “I might be praying in my head, but not out loud.”
That was it. She was arrested for praying “in her head” near an abortion clinic.”
Turley is again spinning the facts to suit the Fox narrative that he’s paid to promote–to wit: that “freedom of speech is under attack”, which is a common Fox theme to justify the endless lying they engage in, and to keep disciples stirred up. Keep the disciples PO’d, blame everything on “the Left” and maybe they’ll ignore Trump’s crimes and vote Republican. Bottom line is that the woman was arrested for ‘violating the abortion clinic ‘buffer zone’, not for praying. She was essentially trespassing by occuping the “buffer zone”. She could pray anyplace she wanted to, but NOT in the “buffer zone”. That is the law in England, and she violated it. Free speech isn’t the issue at all because she wasn’t even speaking.
What your post proves is that the fact-spinning is working–you claim: “the Left seeks to erode those rights (freedom of speech)”. Not true at all, nor is it true that the police “will abuse that authority to oppress dissent”.
“That was it. She was arrested for praying “in her head” near an abortion clinic.”
This incident occurred on a public street open to the public while the abortion clinic was closed. The woman was obstructing nothing.
Gigi/Natasha, what did the woman do wrong? Censoring thought is an attack on free speech.
Are you as clueless about this episode as you were when you talked about Trump’s tax returns? At that time, you didn’t understand how to finance buildings and why the paper profits aren’t clear on IRS forms. You didn’t learn from prior discussions, so you made an a$$ of yourself again.
Gigi:
HOW did she violate the abortion clinic buffer zone? By silently standing next to the building, eyes closed, saying not a word. This attitude was taken as one likely used by either private contemplation or prayer.
Leaning against a public abortion building is only considered trespassing, if they engage in any activity that expresses an opinion contrary to abortion. She said not a word. Disparaged no one. Made no scary faces. She simply closed her eyes. Sometimes she was thinking thoughts about abortion being sad. Sometimes she was praying for the lost babies.
If you walked up to that building, leaned against it, and opened a map, you would not be arrested. The “buffer zone” is not some sort of fenced or cordoned off area that prohibits the public, with a turnstile by which people enter. It’s an imaginary line around a building meant to prevent clients from being prevented from entering or frightened off.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for her thoughts. Literally. She was praying silently, as well as contemplating the issue, outside of an abortion clinic. She said not a word outside. Made no faces. Blocked no one. She had thoughts. Some of those thoughts might be for the babies who perished.
That’s illegal now in the UK. Someone might see her standing there, silent, and worry she might not have a thought they might dislike.
Getting arrested by the literal thought police is straight out of 1984.
Take note that those who advocate for hate speech laws always want to be the ones who define that hate speech.
Thought experiment: What would happen if a Muslim had been arrested for praying in this situation?
Karen S: No, she was arrested for trespassing–for being present in the “buffer zone”, not for praying. There’s no “thought police” preventing people from praying. She could have done her praying in church, or in her own home, but if the law says you can’t occupy a “buffer zone”, then you can’t, but if you hang around there anyway, you’re trespassing, and should be arrested.
Then why did the arresting officer ask if she was praying?
Gigi:
The public can be present in the buffer zone. There isn’t a fence to keep the public out. You could go lean against that building and consult your phone or a map, and not get in any trouble, at all.
She was arrested for silently praying in front of the building, which did not prevent a single person from accessing the clinic.
This is a very simplified view of cell signaling in the innate immune system
Cell Intrinsic Innate Immunity Signaling
https://www.cellsignal.com/pathways/cell-intrinsic-innate-immunity-signaling
The adaptive immune system involving B Cells / antibodies is even far more complex
B Cell Receptor Signaling
https://www.cellsignal.com/pathways/b-cell-receptor-signaling
Then there is T Cells, same website, different page
Pro-tip: study, study, then study some more because what you learned will be obsolete in 10 years
I don’t have time today for this nonsense that ‘Nazis killed communists’. Nazis and communists come from the same branch. Who killed the communist Trotsky? The communist Stalin. Stalinists and Trotskyites are both communists though they have different names.
Brothers kill sisters, and mothers and fathers kill each other. Many Nazis insist they come from the left.
Stupidity and ignorance force the blind to accept terminology that says nothing about ideology.
“[T]he abortion clinic “buffer zone.’”
For decades, conservative speakers have been harassed and physically threatened by campus thugs. When security cordons off an area around the speaker, that is a “buffer zone.”
For years, some anti-abortion protestors in the UK have engaged in the same thuggish behavior. (Seriously, the evidence is out there.) That is why, as a *national* policy, those “buffer zones” were created.
In the buffer zone is not a free speech issue, any more than in the cordoned off area is a free speech issue. It is an issue of an individual’s physical safety.
(I have no view on the particulars of Vaughan-Spruce’s case.)
In the real world there have LONG been actual crimes for “thugish behavior” that can legitimately be punished.
You claim that there is a history of pro-life “thugish behaviour” – you are correct but it has been very fringe conduct, and it has been criminal.
Eric Rudolph is in prison for bombings and murder of abortion clinics and doctors.
There was no need for special laws to protect against Rudolphs conduct.
Just as there is no need for special laws to protect pregnancy clinics from arsonists, bombers and vandals on the left.
We legitimately use the power of the state against people for crimes of violence that have been accepted for hundreds often thousands of years.
When we create Special laws – right or left, that is an open admission we have shifted from punishing bad conduct to punishing disfavored beliefs.
There is no need of protected zones arround abortion clinics – the same laws should protect those clinics as protect, dry cleaners and oil companies, and grocers. An act is not a crime because of two you target, but because of what you do.
Only blind justice is Equal justice
Was anyone assaulted ? If so – lock the perpetrator up.
Actual violence, even immediate actual theats of violence have been illegal for centuries.
There is no physical threat to an abortion clinic or those frequenting them that is not protected by laws that are centuries old.
Abortion clinics are entitled to no more or less protection by the law than grocers or tailors.
As you immigrate people from anti-free speech societies into your country, then don’t even bother to explain the “rights & responsibilities” of being British, the nations values begin to drift away into a fog of cross purposes.
Maybe a hung over cop can arrest a person for “praying in her head”. Step two (arraignment) should be quite telling. Me? I’d fire the copper.
Journalists with access to the people in power need to step up the pressure on our elected representatives, put cameras and microphones in their faces and ask hard questions the American people demand to know. The White House Press Corp is useless, as is the corporate media. Democrats and RINOs, a match made in Hell.
When our institutions fail to provide us what we need, the markets produce alternatives.
Fox was born of the left tilt of the MSM at the time.
Today the lack of actual investigative reporting in the MSM is being remedied by independent journalists.
The homogeneity of thought or lack thereof in the MSM both by the rise of independent journalists and the increasing strength of right wing journalism.
As of yet, this is not significantly impacting the WhiteHouse press core.
But the MSM is failing as you note. It must either adapt of go the way of the dinosaur.
Independent journalism is more successful than it ever has been in US History.
Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, are just a few of a giant and growing army of independent journalists.
Beyond that – despite the homogenity of Social Media we still live in the internet era. On every topic immaginable if you want you can search for and find the worlds most renowned experts. In fact you can find them and their competing expoerts. Turley.org is just one of many such sites in many subjects.
You need not rely of the MSM or Social Media, or Government faux experts for knowledge and information about anything.
If you want to be informed there are more options to do so that ever before in history.
I have no problems with Legacy Media surviving if it adapts. But it should not get propped up by government.
It should return to meeting our needs or we go elsewhere and let it die.
…Vaughan-Spruce, 45, simply standing near the abortion clinic silently praying when an officer confronts her.
Abortion centers are not clinics. A clinic is where life is enhanced and extended. Two lives enter an abortion center, one is killed, another departs while the workers wash their hands.
Pope John Paul II described ~ 20 years ago a culture of death manifest in Western civilization. His words, as always, were prescient. Witness the giddiness of pro-aborts as they die in loneliness, darkness, gasping on the words of ideologies that were declared dead in the late 1980s with the collapse of communism. Darkness detests life. A cynical hedonism is celebrated de rigueur in spite of their collapse in a death spiral.
9. At the root of this loss of hope is an attempt to promote a vision of man apart from God and apart from Christ. This sort of thinking has led to man being considered as “the absolute centre of reality, a view which makes him occupy – falsely – the place of God and which forgets that it is not man who creates God, but rather God who creates man. Forgetfulness of God led to the abandonment of man”. It is therefore “no wonder that in this context a vast field has opened for the unrestrained development of nihilism in philosophy, of relativism in values and morality, and of pragmatism – and even a cynical hedonism – in daily life”. European culture gives the impression of “silent apostasy” on the part of people who have all that they need and who live as if God does not exist.
We are witnessing the emergence of a new culture, largely influenced by the mass media, whose content and character are often in conflict with the Gospel and the dignity of the human person. This culture is also marked by an widespread and growing religious agnosticism, connected to a more profound moral and legal relativism rooted in confusion regarding the truth about man as the basis of the inalienable rights of all human beings. At times the signs of a weakening of hope are evident in disturbing forms of what might be called a“culture of death”
ECCLESIA IN EUROPA
POPE JOHN PAUL II
June 2003
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_20030628_ecclesia-in-europa.html
This arresting for free speech crimes has been getting crazy. Esp scary when the truth of the speech is no defense. Take the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in which even truth was held as not a defense in European courts. She had suggested that Muhammad was a pedophile because he had s𝜉x with 9 year old Aisha. The so called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld her conviction on inciting hatred toward Muslims and for having disparaged their prophet as unworthy of veneration. Insane.
…and Marty King was a cheater, deceiver and iniquitous sinner to his wife and family as an excessive, philandering womanizer, a complete, malicious fraud to his congregation and the general public, and a plagiarizer who was convicted by the university involved but not punished by the dastardly investigating committee out of political fear and deference.
He was not dissimilar to John F. Kennedy, who was boorish, disgusting and egregious, but “loved” by one and all, right?
…oh, and then there’s “Crazy Abe” Lincoln who was a “hero” for destroying a entire country and killing 1 million Americans simply to make one fine point that history was already on the path to the ultimate, tumultuous but peaceful resolution thereof. Indeed, all Lincoln had to do was enforce extant immigration law and the “problem” would have simply “gone away,” no pun intended.
Jonathan: Being a conservative Catholic I am not surprised you have taken up the case of the arrest of an anti-abortion activist in the UK. Isabel Vaughn-Spruce is well known in the UK–the director of the anti-abortion group “March for Life UK”. It’s pretty clear she was inviting arrest by apparently standing inside a protected area around an abortion clinic. She also wanted international coverage of her arrest because she appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show where she said “arresting someone for praying is an act of evil”. Carlson kept repeating “evil” during the interview. Fox News had a long story about the arrest today saying it was “thought crime”. And you, as a Fox contributor, echoed the story in this column. I’m not saying part of your contract with Fox is to provide an “echo chamber” for your employer but I don’t think this is no mere coincidence.
Vaughn-Spruce has become a cause celebre for the anti-abortion movement. She apparently wanted to get arrested and the publicity it would generate. The American Conservative picked up on the story with a headline “In England Silent Prayer Can Be A Crime”, and “Orwell should have been alive to see what his native land has become”. In an ideal world the Birmingham police should have asked V-S to leave the protected space and if she refused then she could be arrested. Granted V-S was not standing on a soapbox blocking the entrance to the abortion clinic shouting “Abortion is evil!” But she was standing in a legally protected safe zone and subject to arrest under the local ordinance. I hope the local magistrate will let her go with a warning. That would take the wind out of the sails of V-S and her supporters.
But you and the right-wing press have made the V-S arrest a big “free speech” issue’ It really isn’t because the Catholic Church and the anti-abortion movement have been vocal for decades opposing abortion. In Catholic publications, in press articles, on TV and on the internet those who oppose abortion have made their position clear. They have lobbied Congress for years to outlaw abortion. So it’s laughable to argue there is a “free speech problem here–that anti-abortion activists are not free to express their views. Back here in the states anti-abortion groups have continued to demonstrate and harass women seeking abortion related advice at clinics. They stand in front of abortion clinics with big signs reading “Stop killing babies!”. That’s “free speech isn’t it? But in the process doctors and abortion clinic workers have been murdered. That’s why, as in the UK, laws have been passed to set up safe zones around abortion clinics.
So here is the real problem. In the wake of the Dobbs decision many states have outlawed abortion. Your silence on the issue indicates you probably support those laws. But what about the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions and to seek advice on their medical decisions without interference from anti-abortion demonstrators or the state? Isn’t that also an equally important “free speech” right? But for the Catholic Church and other anti-abortion groups the “free speech” rights of women stop at the entrance to their vaginas. In states that have outlawed abortion it is women and girls who are “Without a Hope or a Prayer”!
“In an ideal world the Birmingham police should have asked V-S to leave the protected space and if she refused then she could be arrested.”
They did first ask her if she’d go to the police station for voluntary questioning, and she declined. She was arrested for questioning after she said no. She was charged with 4 counts of violating the Public Spaces Protection Order for the clinic; apparently this wasn’t the first time that she’d hung out inside the exclusionary zone since the law was passed in September.
Anonymous: Thx for the clarification. It makes V-s’s position even less credible. She is a publicity seeker–nothing more.
So What ?
Since when is publicity seeking a crime ?
I would note she is seeking to publicly expose abortion clinics in the UK.
Is that different from drawing negative public attention to financial companies ? or Oil Companies ? or …. ?
You do not seem to understand that very large numbers of us not only find this offensive.
But find your support of this immoral and offensive.
Your defense only makes this WORSE.
So she refused to voluntarily go to a police station for questioning.
If the questioning was actually voluntary she was free to refuse, and could not be arrested for doing so.
You fixated on the fact that the UK or atleast this community has criminalized any meaningful abortion protests.
That alone very many of us find offensive.
I joined the ACLU to fight for the right of NAZI’s to march through my town square.
Then I protested their march.
If protesting abortion can be made illegal, then protesting the war in Ukraine can be, then protesting anything government favors can be.
It is very disturbing to many of us that you are defending this.
While I think the legal case here has little merit, that is a UK issue.
The immorality of what is being done is NOT.
The immorality of you defending it is NOT.
You assume a lot of things that I have not said.
“your support of this”
Where did I say that I support it?
I did not say that. Stop pretending that I’ve said things I haven’t said.
“Your defense …. you are defending this. … you defending it”
Where did I defend it?
Again: stop pretending that I’ve said things I haven’t said.
Your posting as anonymous so inherently everything I say about you is false,
and everything I say about you is true.
Because there is no you.
As to the rest – if you wish to disown your own comments fine.
Otherwise what you you doing posting at all ?
Turley’s article and debate here does not hinge on whether the law was broken.
In point of fact if silent prayers accross the street from an abrotion clinic are a crime
That makes the argument that something is Very wrong in the UK,
and we are all legitimately terrified that left wing nut thought crime will cross the pond to the US.
I do not care if the woman in question was an actual Nazi and was verbally engaged in Nazi proselytizing
I would be deeply offended if UK law barred that – which it likely does, and fighting like h311 to make sure such complete idiocy does not get here.
Returning to you, You claiming I am falsely accusing you
Great, I will be happy to apologize for doing so when you make it clear that you Do NOT support
criminalizing slient prayer in front of an abortion clinic.
I will be happy to learn I am wrong about you.
I will be glad to apologize.
I will be happy to correct whatever eroneous statements I have made.
But if you wish me to do so, you must demonstate unequivocally that I am wrong.
I am not interested in playing games with you.
If you do not care one way or the other – why are you in the conversation ?
“Your posting as anonymous everything I say about you is false, and everything I say about you is true.”
What nonsense.
Whether a T/F claim is true versus false isn’t determined by your personal ability to (dis)prove it. You are only able to prove a small subset of all true claims in the world and only able to disprove a small subset of all false claims, yet each T/F claim has a truth-value even when you personally cannot determine it.
I asked “Where did I defend it?” and you responded with crickets. You are unable to quote me defending it, and you apparently lack the integrity to admit it.
“if you wish me to do so, you must demonstate unequivocally that I am wrong.”
More nonsense, and an example of the fallacy known as the misplaced burden: https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#MisplacedBurden
I am unsurprised.
I would suggest that you actually read the resources that you provide as you clearly do not understand them.
You also conflate formal proofs with argument.
Who has the burden of proof for “The earth is not flat” ?
You know enough about logic to get yourself in trouble, and very little more.
The rules for formal mathematical proofs are quite rigid and allow no assumptions of any kind to be made.
Which is why it takes hundreds of pages to prove that 1+1=2
The rules for argument are completely different, and many factors including the credibility of each party are relevant.
if you wish me to do so, you must demonstrate unequivocally that I am wrong.
Is not an example of the fallacy you cite.
Do I need to explain why ? Do I need to explain the difference between an assertion and an offer ?
Do you actually think before you post ?
“I asked “Where did I defend it?” and you responded with crickets”
No, I responded with an offer to correct my statement, if you would come out from the fog and state your position clearly,
rather than sniping from a position inside a fog bank without taking ownership of your position.
Untrue. The video shows that the police did ask Isabel Vaughn-Spruce to go to the station for so-called ‘voluntary questioning’ but when she asked if she had a choice whether or not to go, the police said she did not actually have a choice and arrested her. Anyone can verify this by watching the video clip of her arrest. The 800 Lb gorilla in the room here is that you appear to find the law under which she was arrested to be acceptable. Any law that sanctions this kind of action is no more acceptable than the Nuremberg laws.
What did I say that’s untrue?
Here’s a transcript of the relevant exchange:
LEO: … I’ll ask you once more, will you voluntarily come with us now to the police station for me to ask you some questions about today and other days where there are allegations that you’ve broken the Public Spaces Protection Order.
Vaughn-Spruce: Uh, if I’ve got a choice, then no.
LEO: OK, well then you’re under arrest on suspicion of failing to comply with the Public Spaces Protection Order …
That matches what I said: They did first ask her if she’d go to the police station for voluntary questioning, and she declined. She was arrested for questioning after she said no.
Then I said: She was charged with 4 counts of violating the Public Spaces Protection Order for the clinic; apparently this wasn’t the first time that she’d hung out inside the exclusionary zone since the law was passed in September.
The LEO references other days, and Turley noted that the law was passed in September and she was charged with 4 counts.
So again: what did I say that’s untrue?
As for your guess about my beliefs, my actual beliefs about the law are that parts of it are acceptable and parts of it are objectionable. Have you read the full text of the law? If not, that might explain why you’d oversimplify my actual beliefs about it.
Dennis: thanks for the context.
“….the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions….” Such as choosing to have intercourse without contraception?
“Once you start as a government to criminalize speech, you end up on a slippery slope of censorship.”
That ship has sailed. We have criminalized some speech since our founding. Perjury, for example, is criminal. And keep in mind that the First Amendment’s speech protections weren’t incorporated against the states until the last 100 year; before that, the speech clause only applied to the federal government.
As an American, you enjoy the freedom of speech and the freedom of perjurious speech.
As an American you enjoy freedom and self-reliance, aka responsibility.
You would be responsible and wise to discriminate and not commit perjury through the impulsive and injudicious exercise of your freedom of speech.
It is telling that most of the major networks did not cover this story and that comments were turned off on the video. The woman was very cooperative. She just happened to be standing on the sidewalk. She could have said anything, but she chose to tell the truth. I am sure, regardless of the outcome from her arrest, that she will have a mar on her social score.
History is replete with examples of brave men and women who saw something that was wrong and had the courage to make a stand. For some, it cost them dearly and in some cases they paid with their lives.
https://youtu.be/k6E105a58p8
She didn’t “just happen to be standing on the sidewalk.”
She was there quite purposefully and has been doing so for years, per her own statement, “sometimes I’ll stand or walk near an abortion facility and pray about this issue. This is something I’ve done pretty much every week for around the last 20 years of my life.” The law setting up the exclusionary zone outside this clinic was passed in September, and she chose to stand inside the clearly marked zone.
Fascist.
You’re pretty delusional to believe facts to be fascist.
So ?
She was doing an excellent job of demonstrating the idiocy of such laws.
You say there is an exclusionary zone – who is excluded ? Certainly not women seeking an abortion. Or doctors and nurses. or people just passing on the street.
The law seeks to exclude people who wish to protest abortion – a UK government policy.
Can the UK create an exclusionary zone to criminalize people who wish to protest UK involvement in Ukraine ?
Of course they can – but does that make it right.
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Are you unable to look up the answer to your question?
The point I am making IS the answers to those questions.
Either – the law was improperly applied, or the law is immoral.
That is also Turley’s point.
You keep trying to play word games rather than actually make an argument.
State an actual position and defend it.
Otherwise your comments have no value.
“A recent order from September 7 made clear that praying near an abortion clinic is now a criminal act in the country.”
That’s false. She breached a local law — https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/downloads/file/24121/robert_clinic_station_road_b30 — not a national one, and it was specific to the single clinic she was outside of. It does not apply to other abortion clinics in the country. And it wasn’t because she was “near” the clinic, but because she had repeatedly stood for hours inside a clearly-marked “Public Space Protection Order” zone.
Once again, JT is sloppy on the details of what he’s reporting about. For better reporting: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/isabel-vaughan-spruce-45-charged-25794626
One can disagree with the arrest, and with Public Space Protection Orders more generally, without distorting the facts.
Anonymous is once again sloppy with her comment. Why should there be anywhere where a person can not pray in silence. One place or any place going to jail because you pray is not somehow justified. Ounce again Anonymous deflects from the heart of the matter. Twist it again Anonymous as is your pattern. The lady in question is a civil liberties hero. Throw paint on a pregnancy counsel center and Anonymous will defend you to the death. Prey at an abortion clinic and Anonymous will say you deserve what you get. Thanks for your wisdom Anonymous.
“Anonymous is once again sloppy with her [sic] comment.”
What did I say that was false?
“Throw paint on a pregnancy counsel center and Anonymous will defend you to the death. Prey [sic] at an abortion clinic and Anonymous will say you deserve what you get.”
You’re a liar. I haven’t done either. Is your typo a Freudian slip?
“That’s false. She breached a local law ”
ATS, you are proving yourself a fascist. Some laws fascists create merely exist to punish their enemies. Look at the fascist regime of Nazi Germany. They pass laws against Jews, gypsies and others. Then they put them in extermination camps. You are a real dummy not to realize what fascism is.
From the article Anonymous the Stupid provided.
“The PSPO protecting the area around Robert Clinic focuses on ensuring people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation.”
Spruce wasn’t obstructing or conforming anyone. The clinic was closed and she was along across the street doing nothing. Your fascism is clear. You want her convicted of Wrong Think. You are an idiot.
You are ATS, talking to and about yourself.
I can’t think of a more stupid reply ATS. But that is why you are called Anonymous the Stupid.
You seem to think that it matters much whether she “breeched the law”.
In the event that you are actually correct and it is illegal to pray near this Abortion Clinic – you have already lost the moral high ground.
All you have done is proven the local government so fascist as to criminalize thought.
The UK is not the US – what terrifies many of is that those like you think that it is a good thing for the UK.
You would have no problem doing this in the US if you could get away with it
We are terrified that you are so much of a fascist that you think that YOUR ideas – and only yours are entitled to special legal protections.
Protections such that people can not even Think differently.
You repeatedly assume that I think things I haven’t said.
Then point out how I am wrong in those assumptions.
I will be happy to apologize when you make Clear that I am wrong.
I frequently criticize those of you on the left for attempting to read my mind – BECAUSE YOU ARE WRONG.
For the umpteenth time: trying to shift the burden is a fallacy.
Shifting the Burden is NOT a fallacy.
Where the burden of proof rests depends on many factors.
I have addressed many of those in the past.
Before I will correct an alleged misrepresentation of your views,
it is both reasonable andnecescary that you provide your actual views,
otherwise how can anyone tell that there was a misrepresentation.
Your playing games, and I have called your bluff.
That’s false. She breached a local law
Your fall back position for taking the opposite of Turley is funny, funny in its raw stewpididy. You just digress to your trademark pedantry. (since facts don’t support your disagreement)
The article never mentions anything but local law applied to this case.
What happened is not so much the debate. But whether the massive power of Government should be used against its citizens for jailing a single person standing and not affecting another living soul. You are all for the government harrassing citizens, for absolutely NOTHING.
“The article never mentions anything but local law applied to this case.”
As I already quoted, Turley said “praying near an abortion clinic is now a criminal act in the country.” A local law cannot make something criminal in the country. The local law applies to a single clinic.
“You are all for the government harrassing citizens, for absolutely NOTHING.”
BS. Which is why you cannot quote anything to substantiate that.
We should all breath a deep sigh of relief because it is only a Crime to pray in certain places in a single British municipality ?
How pedantic can you be ?
Cry for me Argentina!
The American Founders and Framers understood that the rights and freedoms revealed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights are natural and God-given, and that those rights and freedoms existed before government was created.
Natural and God-given rights and freedoms are universal and the universe includes the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom, home of noble, reverent and pious Drawing and Quartering, more recently stooped to tyranny and dictatorship in its inspirational endeavor to deny nature and God.
The American communist welfare state is not dissimilar to that of the United Kingdom, both of which insidiously succumb to Karl Marx’s slogan, “From each according to his ability [to pay confiscatory taxes], to each according to his [parasitic and dependent] needs,” aka to steal from Peter to pay Paul.
The American Founders opposed and defeated tyranny and dictatorship to implement their thesis of natural and God-given freedom and self-reliance.
The singular American failure in constitutional America is the Supreme Court with its pristine and unused power of Judicial Review.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, or God.
In England one cannot do whatever one wants on the sidewalks. For example, ride a bicycle. In particular, the portion of the sidewalk in front of an establishment cannot legally be blocked from access. I don’t think you understand, JT, and merely babble on.
She was not arrested for blocking the side walks, she was arrested for praying.
The officer asked her is she was praying when she said she was in her mind, he arrested her.
Actually, she was arrested (quoting the officer) “on suspicion of failing to comply with the Public Spaces Protection Order.”
Said suspicion based on the fact that she said she was praying in her mind.
You seem to think that facts do not matter.
Laws are violated by acts.
In this case according to the police by prayers in here mind.
1984 thought crime
Frankly, it’s ironic that you make claims about thoughts I haven’t expressed and don’t have. My actual thoughts are the opposite of what you falsely believe.
You and I don’t *know* that she was arrested “based on the fact that she said she was praying in her mind.” It’s a fact that she said that. But it’s not a fact that the officer said that’s why he was arresting her, and the fact that she was charged with four counts (not one) of violating the law suggests that the charges involve more than her single statement.
“In this case according to the police by prayers in here mind.”
If you have a copy of the charges for us to see what “according to the police” actually states, I’ll gladly read them, and I’ll change my mind if the charges say that she was arrested on suspicion of praying. Otherwise, I’ll withhold judgment until more facts about the actual charges come out. I try not to pretend to know things I don’t actually know.
It is amazing how you construct or bend facts.
She was not arrested until she said she might be “praying in her mind”.
The officers as YOU noted asked her to come to the station for voluntary questioning – she refused.
If the questioning is voluntary, she has the right to refuse.
If they had a basis for arresting her prior to her statement – they could have, and they certainly did not need to ask her to voluntarily come to the station for questioning.
You say they charged he with 4 counts – SO WHAT ?
I doubt very many people in the US are convicted of more than a fraction of what they are charged with.
Charges become significant when in court the actual charges being tried are expected to match the facts that can be proved.
We are not in a court british or otherwise.
Neither I nor Turley are discussing the nuances of British law.
What we are addressing is that the UK is so morally corrupt that thought is now a crime.
We get this idiocy from you left wing nuts all the time.
First actually own your won values – otherwise you are just playing word games.
The precise details are relevant as to whether a person violated the law.
The broader facts the totality of circumstances are relevant regarding whether the law itself is moral or wrong.
I do not give a Schiff if V-S was calling those going into the clinic nasty names.
The fact is that she was not.
Regardless, if she was and that was a Crime in the UK then UK law is immoral.
We get similar idiocy from the left here.
It is OK for proabortion protestors do so on the private lawns of supreme court justices.
It is not OK for pro-life protestors to do so near a clinic.
It is OK for pro abortion protestors to committ arson against Woments pregnancy centers.
You have no standards except double standards.
Own your own values.
She was not arrested for blocking the side walks, she was arrested for praying.
Praying is indeed threatening to those who fear Christ-mas
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkwA8S7X0AUtWl_?format=jpg&name=medium
If Mother Teresa attempted to fulfill her mission in Britain today she would be imprisoned. She founded the order, The Missionaries of Charity, to look after abandoned babies and to help the poorest of the poor, once saying that they “lived like animals but die like angels”. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize and after her death was canonised as Saint Teresa. She too would be arrested for praying. Would there be any Nobel laureates who would come to her rescue?
My mind is boggled. It is amazing to me to see the leaders of free nations now use the same tactics that have and are being used by the governments of China, Venezuela, Russia and Cuba to limit the speech of its citizens. Can they not see the rotten fruit that is the result of the limitations imposed by such nations? Do they not see the history of tyranny that has brought the downfall of such nations in the past? Have they lost the vision of the millions who have perished by starvation and murder in totalitarian nations? Is imprisonment in Britain for thought crimes any different then imprisonment in the Russian Gulags for the same offense? How can they walk so blindly on the path to their own destruction? I pray that good men will again stand up.