A pro-lifer has been arrested for allegedly breaching an abortion clinic buffer zone in Glasgow, Scotland.
The 74-year-old woman was arrested on Wednesday “and charged in connection with breach of the exclusion zone”, Police Scotland said.
She was among a group of pro-life campaigners who have continued to hold vigils outside an abortion facility in Glasgow despite Scotland’s crackdown on pro-life activity.
Her arrest comes days after US Vice-President JD Vance drew attention to draconian abortion clinic buffer zones which criminalize pro-life activity, including prayer and offers of assistance to women experiencing crisis pregnancies.
Highlighting restrictions in Edinburgh, Vance told a conference of European leaders in Munich, “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.”
Scottish First Minister John Swinney said Vance’s comments were “just wrong” and that “no such point was put to residents whatsoever on private prayer”.
The letter to Edinburgh residents said that even “activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the zone and are done intentionally or recklessly”.
Vance’s comments have been defended by apologist and evangelist David Robertson. Writing for this website, he said, “If you stood within an exclusion zone and prayed privately, you could be arrested and charged – as was the man in England who Vance also mentioned, Adam Smith-Connor.
“And as the letter sent to households states, the same rules apply in a private house within the exclusion zone, as to other areas in that zone. Therefore, logically, if private prayer is forbidden in the exclusion zone, then it must also be forbidden in a private house. Of course, if the curtains were closed and no one else was present then no one would know, and you would not be arrested. But if you mentioned to someone, or wrote on social media that you were praying for those who were having abortions, then you could be reported for breaking the law. The police have helpfully informed us that such actions can be reported to them.
“Vance’s statements on Scotland were therefore substantively correct, no matter the attempts of some politicians and journalists to misinform us.”
Pro-life group 40 Days for Life has announced that it plans to meet every day outside the Glasgow abortion clinic between 5 March and 13 April, despite calls not to do so from Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Green MSP who championed the abortion clinic buffer zone legislation.
“I urge 40 Days For Life and anyone else who is planning to protest in a safe access zone to think again, as they will be stopped and there will be consequences,” she said.
