Warning – free speech under attack!

Media Release 5 April 2025

Right to Life seeks to alert our community to the alarming and increasing threats to free speech. We should be aware that the persecution and suppression of free speech in what was once the bastion of free speech, the United Kingdom, could afflict our nation. We too have embarked on the path of suppressing free speech with the government’s imposition of “safe areas” of 150 metres around the boundaries of abortion facilities. In March 2022, Parliament amended legislation after it failed to achieve this objective during the passing of the Abortion Legislation Act in 2020.

Rose Doherty, a 74 year old pro-life grandmother, was arrested in Glasgow, Scotland, on 19th February 2025 for standing peacefully within the legally designated safe area of 200 metres surrounding the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, holding a sign which read, “Coercion is a crime. Here to talk, only if you want”.

Rose was arrested by four police officers, placed in handcuffs, taken in a van to the police station, where she was searched and charged with violating the Abortion Services Act 2024. Rose now awaits trial and could be fined up to £10,000.

It’s devastating to see an innocent, courageous, 74-year-old grandmother handcuffed and arrested, just for offering help to other women, who freely exercise their right to reach out for support to choose life for their preborn child.

There is similar “safe area” legislation in England. On 4th April Dr Livia Tossica-Belt, a retired clinical scientist, was convicted of violating the Public Spaces Protection Order, issued by the local authority in Bournemouth, Dorset. Dr Tossica-Belt’s crime was standing peacefully in a “safe area” surrounding an abortion facility in Bournemouth, holding a sign “Here to talk if you want”

She was convicted, provisionally discharged and ordered to pay costs of £10,000 ($20,000).

There are three other pro-life advocates who were recently arrested in the UK, for exercising their right of free speech to stand peacefully in a “safe zone” area near an abortion facility.

Fr Sean Gough was arrested in 2023 in a “safe zone” surrounding an abortion facility in Birmingham. He was arrested for praying silently and for holding a sign that read, “Praying for free speech”. The charges were dismissed with the warning that they could be revived at any time. He said: “I pray wherever I go, inside my head, for the people around me. How can it be a crime for a priest to pray?”

Adair Smith-Connor, an Afghanistan war veteran, was arrested in 2022 for praying silently in a Bournemouth abortion safe zone for his aborted son. He was convicted and ordered to pay costs of £ 9,000.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, leader of 40 Days for Life in the UK, was recently arrested and searched by three police officers. She stated that she was not “protesting”, but “might be” praying inside her head within the Birmingham censorship zone.

Ms Vaughan-Spruce said, “I have been arrested multiple times, faced an intrusive police investigation, and dragged into court – simply for standing silently on a public street nearby an abortion clinic, praying, imperceptibly, in the privacy of my mind."

Right to Life is committed to protecting life and the freedom of speech. We will not rest until the Safe Areas legislation that protects the abortion industry in New Zealand is repealed and the violation of our free speech and assembly inflicted on us on public streets around the killing centres is banished.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life New Zealand Inc.