By Chuck Donovan

In case you haven’t noticed, national and international politics have been plagued with insanity of late. No, it’s not that much of the Western world is debating free speech, abortion, the nature of marriage, parental rights, and so forth, because that has been true for nigh-on half a century (and more if you consult the archives of eugenics, the humanist movement, Marxism, and other social forces). The new things are even rawer topics: destructive surgeries on minors and small children, arresting citizens for offering to speak to one another, and attacks on social service agencies that commit such “crimes” as offering free diapers, strollers, and prenatal care to mothers in need.

What is on display now goes beyond arguments over how far government can go to limit personal choices in the realm of sexuality and the bearing of babies. The new issues touch on whether it is even licit to disagree or to take private, peaceful, and benevolent action on principles of charity to the needy. For a considerable slice of the progressive wing of democratic society, the answer to these questions is that witnessing to life, even in the form of volunteering to meet the most basic material needs of another, is impermissible, punishable by massive fines and threats of jail time.

The latest evidence for this is the conviction on Friday of Livia Tossici-Bolt, a 64-year-old woman whose alleged “crime” was standing in proximity to an abortion facility with a sign reading — hold your breath — “Here to talk, if you want.” This grave offense was found by the court to violate a British law called the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime, and Policing Act 2014. The judge in the case opined of Tossici-Bolt that she “lacks insight that her presence could have a detrimental effect on the women attending the clinic, their associates, staff, and members of the public.” As a consequence, Tossici-Bolt has been given a two-year conditional discharge, similar to probation, and a fine of £20,000.

Convictions like this are becoming trendy in Great Britain. Last October a former British serviceman, Adam Smith-Connor, was likewise convicted in a Bournemouth Court for unlawfully engaging in a silent vigil outside an abortion facility operated by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Smith-Connor was alone at the time, with his head bowed and his hands folded in prayer, but he reportedly admitted he was there to pray for his unborn son who was killed by abortion some 22 years ago. The “buffer zone” involved now extends some 150 meters in circumference around the abortion facility. Smith-Connor’s penalty was also two years of conditional discharge and a fine of £9,000. It’s not clear whether the addition of the sign in the Tossici-Bolt case caused the higher fine or merely the number of counts with which she was charged.

A third case with similar characteristics — silent witness with authorities conducting an on-street cross-examination and speculation — was internationally reported in 2022. The case had a decidedly different outcome. Pregnancy center volunteer and co-director of the March for Life UK Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for praying silently outside a Birmingham abortion facility that was in fact closed for the day. A striking video shows Midlands Police accosting Vaughan-Spruce and asking what was going on in her mind. Once again, a PSPO, Public Spaces Protection Order, was the basis for enforcement. Police ultimately dropped the charges against her and then settled a civil suit by her for £13,000 “without any admission of liability.” Unfortunately, Vaughan-Spruce was targeted again by Midlands police for her “mere presence” in the vicinity of the abortion facility, making it three times they have confronted her.

The global notoriety of these cases is fully justified. In the entirety of modern discourse over public demonstrations, general agreement has evolved that peaceful actions for which permits have been obtained when they are sizable and can subvert lawful activity are not only legal but honorable examples of democracy at work. Citizens who commit acts of obstruction or destruction are liable under various laws, and sit-ins and other protests sometimes intentionally run those risks, whether wisely or not. But standing within a soccer pitch’s distance from an abortion facility and offering prayers — or help, or merely to talk — isn’t remotely criminal or a breach of the peace.

The prosecutions in the United Kingdom have betrayed the traditions of Western legal systems and done so on behalf of a practice, abortion virtually on request, that itself is a betrayal of the centuries-old canons of medical ethics. Great Britain has experienced a surge in abortions in recent years, which, no matter your perspective on the issue, is an alarming sign that something is gravely amiss there. As AI will promptly inform you, there were more than a quarter million abortions in the U.K. in 2022, an increase of 17% over the previous year. The chart of this explosion in prenatal death is breathtaking and no rational government should be indifferent as to the causes of such an increase in the waste of human life.

These events have not only stoked international media attention but drawn the fire of the outspoken U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance. Not possessed of English reserve, Vance used his first speech in office overseas to offer a variety of criticisms of America’s European allies that will spark debate for years, but his comments about the crackdown on free speech were spot on:

“[M]ost concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of his unborn son.”

Vance went on:

“Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no. This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.”

The recent clashes over tariffs and economic relations between the United States and virtually the rest of the globe will justly roil international relations and create controversy. But dispute over government control of media and selective punishment of unpopular, even objectionable views, should not divide free nations. The strong voice of American foreign policy on this question is crucial to the resolution of each and every one of these issues, whether the topic be vaccines, abortion, or the politics of the far Right or the far Left.

As advocates like to say, the solution to bad speech is not suppression but more speech. Prayer, too, should only beget more prayer. In these times that continue to “try men’s souls,” each of us should be committed to signaling to our fellow human beings that we are “Here to talk, if you want.”

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.