A woman has been prosecuted for holding a sign saying “here to talk, if you want to” outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic. She was not seeking to interfere with the rights of any woman entering the clinic, although I think it is fair to say that she was hoping to influence her into changing her mind. It cannot be right that a woman should be criminally prosecuted in such a case.
Livia Tossici-Bolt was found guilty of two public order offences for breaching a protected zone outside a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinic on two consecutive days in March 2023.
The zone was established outside the clinic in 2022 given its status as one of the most harassed abortion centres in the country.
The offence is in section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023.
Offence of interference with access to or provision of abortion services
(1) It is an offence for a person who is within a safe access zone to do an act with the intent of, or reckless as to whether it has the effect of —
- influencing any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic,
- obstructing or impeding any person accessing, providing, or facilitating the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic, or
- causing harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic.
I am only interested in the first offence: that it is an offence for someone to do an act inside a buffer zone with the intent (or reckless – a legal term of art) to influence any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic. (The other acts in (b) and (c) I accept should be criminal.)
It should be noted that when the buffer zones around abortion clinics were introduced it was on the basis that women were being harassed and intimidated before they entered. I don’t support these acts. But the idea that you cannot do any act with the intent of influencing a woman who is entering an abortion clinic is different.
Livia Tossici-Bolt stood outside Bournemouth abortion clinic on March 2nd and 3rd holding a sign saying “here to talk, if you want to”. That’s all she did.
Officer Rukan Taki, who is employed by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council to enforce the terms of the safe zone, spoke to her after a complaint was made by the clinic.
The Times sets out what was said at court here.
Tossici-Bolt said “I’ve been dragged through court merely for offering consensual conversation. Peaceful expression is a fundamental right — no one should be criminalised for harmless offers to converse.”
And “my case, involving only a mere invitation to speak, is but one example of the extreme and undeniable state of censorship in Great Britain today. It is important that the government actually does respect freedom of expression, as it claims to.”
Louise McCudden, head of external affairs at the pregnancy advice and abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices [formerly named Marie Stopes International], said the charity was relieved “to see the law upheld”.
She said: “Before we had Safe Access Zones, women entering our clinics were harassed, spat at, called murderers and sinners, and given false medical information. We are grateful to local authorities like Bournemouth for listening to residents and introducing local protections.”
I don’t see how the prosecution of Tossici-Bolt’s action of holding a sign up could be proportionate to her Article 10 freedom of expression rights. I hope it is appealed. She has not committed any of the nasty acts such as harassing, spitting or calling women murderers or sinners.
In seeking to prevent harassment the state cannot over legislate – this is the idea it criminalises minor acts in order to prevent more serious ones. That is the very definition of a disproportionate interference in freedom of expression.
Holding up a sign saying “here to talk, if you want to” is clearly a form of expression. However I do not believe that Tossici-Bolt is being completely honest when she says it was only an invitation for consensual conversation. Clearly, if you hold up that sign and you are inviting conversation it is with the intent to influence the decision of a woman about to enter an abortion clinic. You want her to change her mind and keep the baby.
I don’t know why the pro-lifers are being so coy about this. There are two reasons you might stand outside an abortion clinic within the buffer zone of 150 metres. The first is the Christian idea of bearing witness – which deserves an article of its own. The second is surely to influence the woman to not undergo the planned abortion. At this stage, you are at last chance saloon.
Some women – maybe just one – who are entering an abortion clinic any one day might have some doubt about what they are about to do. Perhaps they are being coerced, perhaps they feel they have no alternative, they feel having an abortion is something they have to do, not what they want to do. And there is another woman who is holding a sign saying she is here to talk. That’s what she is doing with her day. She isn’t at work, or at the gym or at lunch or minding her children or parents.
This woman is outside the abortion clinic holding a sign hoping to influence another woman who is about to enter the clinic and end her pregnancy. Sign woman wants pregnant woman to change her mind by holding a sign up saying she is here to talk. We should be honest about that. In a civilised society this would not be criminalised. It is obviously a disproportionate interference with free speech.
Perhaps the pregnant woman who is about to enter the clinic decides not to. She goes over to the woman holding up the sign saying she is here to talk, if you want to. So the pregnant woman goes over and talks, because she wants to. Maybe the woman ends her pregnancy anyway but she knew someone cared enough to spend her whole day outside a clinic. Or maybe the pregnant woman decides she will continue with her pregnancy and contacts one of the charities such as Life that will give her practical help and advice with her pregnancy.
If this happens, this is bad for the abortion clinic. It is one abortion less for the day. It has lost a customer. One extra baby in the labour ward in nine months’ time, is one fewer infant remains to be disposed of that very day.
In short, a crazy lady standing outside their abortion clinic offering help is bad for business. And they can’t be doing with that.
Laura Perrins is a conservative commentator and former barrister. Subscribe to her Substack.
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Governments censor speech that sheds light on things they don’t want illuminated.
Western governments, for reasons that aren’t entirely obvious to me, are determined not to let anyone get in the way of women murdering their unborn babies.
I’m sure many will find that last statement is uncomfortable and controversial because those who are in favour of abortion don’t like it to be referred to as murder. And that of course is the point of the censorship – to shroud as much as possible what is objectively speaking murder.
I’ve always thought it’s very revealing that the authorities will never sanction the showing of a clinical abortion on TV for example. Ostensibly it’s simply another surgical procedure like any other – appendectomy…tonsillectomy…But watch a film called ‘The Silent Scream’. You will be left in no doubt as to what an abortion involves. Truly dreadful. And clearly the ending a of a small, defenceless life. And the powers that be cannot allow this truth to prevent the ongoing slaughter of unborn babies.
Indeed.
I remember some years ago reading an article in a French newspaper putting the argument forward that an abortion should be considered nothing more than ethically problematic than a trip to the dentist, like “having a sore tooth removed”.
Also, it’s interesting how they don’t say abortion services instead it’s “reproductive choices”. Ah, so nice, isn’t it?
(By the way, I’m the proud father of a complete unplanned but very much loved, delightful 27 year old young man.)
Let me ask you an honest question:
If your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?
I don’t think your question is genuine: you contrive an extreme, highly artificial scenario. The absolute majority of abortions are carried out for reasons of convenience.
Ask the thousands of young British girls gang-raped by Muslims in towns all over England if they think my question is “contrived”, “extreme” or “artificial”.
Then answer it. Would you raise the child resulting from a Muslim Gang Rape as your own grandchild?
Of course, you would also have to let it inherit your family’s money in your will, so that the Muslim Gang could come back one day and claim it after you were long gone…
How wonderful! You made the right choice!
Honest question:
If your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?
There is still hope as expressed here for instance:
https://www.clmagazine.org/topic/human-dignity/conceived-in-rape-born-of-love/
1) It doesn’t answer my question at all.
2) I read that woman’s weird article, gloating that she had the “child of rape”, that the hospital had to protect her from the child’s father because she had reported him to police and prosecutors, but somehow he was not in jail and perfectly free to demand paternity rights at the hospital, and that she’s a top lawyer and political activist.
It seemed to me that she had wanted a child without having to share it with its father, so she accused her sexual partner of rape after getting pregnant, and now campaigns for men so accused to not have any parental rights.
Rapists do not rape in order to get parental rights!!! Her story sounds contrived and artificial to me, part of some political activist campaign.
Yes.
This idea of persuasion as violence has been percolating for a long time. It has a superficial attraction. At the extreme end you can look at vulnerable people being persuaded to join cults or connedinto losing large amounts of money. But this is a conflation of persuasion with seduction. There is a very simple difference – seduction seeks to undermine faculties of rationality and agency and persuasion can only be said to be valid if these faculties remain intact.
Japan offers “baby hatches” for women horrified at being forced to give birth as a result of rape, incest or sex slavery/prostitution.
Tokyo hospital sets up baby hatch as last resort for struggling mothers | The Independent
Japan’s baby hatch hospital offers mothers ‘last resort’
“Abortion has been legal in Japan since 1948 and is available up until 22 weeks, but consent is required from a male partner.”
“Baby hatches have existed globally for centuries and are used today in places including South Korea, Pakistan and the United States.”
“But they have been BANNED IN SOME COUNTRIES, SUCH AS BRITAIN, and criticized by the UN for violating a child’s right to know their parents and identity.”
*********************************************************************************************
There may be many other good reasons a woman decides to have an abortion, such as not being sure who the father of the child is, and not wanting to trick a man into marriage by foisting another man’s child upon him as his own. Other women are more cynical, choosing abortion after deliberately getting pregnant to force a man into marriage, then when he refuses to cooperate, the woman wants to ditch the child as no longer of any use to her. She often tries the same trick again with a different man.
Years ago there was a study showing that one out of every six children born in the West was not the biological child of its father, due to secret adultery by the mother. It’s all very complicated, but if this woman Tossici-Bolt was deliberately violating the 150 metre Safe Zone around the clinic, then she was attempting to intimidate the patients, who are already embarrassed enough at being seen entering the clinic.
“Rape, nicest, slavery/prostitution”. Motte and Bailey fallacy, where the extreme case is used to defend the general one. These are forced situations, not lifestyle choices.
Read it again: BABY HATCHES ARE BANNED IN BRITAIN.
Well, if a bit of intimidation saves a baby’s life, then it can’t be all bad.
If your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?
If you read the gospels you can see very clearly the distinction between persuasion and black magic. The form and content of parables was always a petition to see as clearly as possible. One of the beauties of the Christ spirit is that it never seeks to cajole or coerce it asks you to ask of yourself. This is the fundamental tenet of our morality. It represents the entry into the world of a new energy that has a long way to go.
It goes back a long time. During the reign of the Greeks there were a people called the ‘teleste’, meaning the guided ones or those who lived with purpose. By Roman times they had become adepts, that is to say that they were robbed of their independence. Try to see these matters in these spiritual terms and you will develop a much better understanding of our current predicament. If you look at the period of cathedral building in Europe you will see in every case master stonemasons brought in from all over Europe. Can you imagine building an office these days where you needed people from outside. Can you imagine the calibre of these people. There is no pissing about you either get right with God or you die.
Is it some collective guilt for colonialism? If you are on the back foot then you are on the back foot by choice. Is it the triumph of materialism? Surely our times suggest otherwise. I have no respect for fellow Christians they have no explanation for their cowardice and indolence. Like He said, depart from me I never knew you.
This is the bit I would question, in this context. Although we know fine well that the UK government are most certainly attempting to censor and persecute anyone that speaks/expresses themselves in a way they find disagreeable;
”It is important that the government actually does respect freedom of expression, as it claims to.”
It’s not that Livia is having her freedom of expression censored. The focus in this scenario is on the *where* she is permitted to express herself. People can hold their signs and silently pray all they want, but it must be outside of the restricted area. If they have a problem with this then it becomes rather obvious to all that there is an ulterior motive. I mean, a person can pray in their house, in the park or on a train. Why knowingly go to an area that you know full well is restricted? And now we know more details about the clinic in this example, and the problems they’ve had with people loitering outside and making nuisances of themselves, then placing this ‘buffer zone’ around it seems completely justified, as far as I’m concerned. I will say the 20,000 pounds in costs she has to pay is totally disproportionate but she knowingly broke the law. However, I’m sure she’ll raise the money ( or most of it ) through people donating to her crowd-funding. She’s more than half way there already;
https://www.givesendgo.com/help-livia
I am an atheist, so not driven by the Christian opposition to abortion and I don’t understand why it is a subject that has a political divide Republican (frequently non-catholic) against and Democratic (frequently Catholic) in favour. It all seems politically and religiously mixed up. Personally, I think abortion is a far too easy choice in the modern world from the morning after pill to full termination and would welcome, in a time of such low birth rates, a greater restriction of access. This should be accompanied by improved adoption services and reduced availability of IVF and other services on the public purse.
But and this is a huge but, these protests should be stopped. No one other than the person attending the clinic knows the trauma the attendee is going through and they don’t need to run a gauntlet. If you allow one protestor, do you allow two, three or more to stand and pray together or apart. It is not like me going through a JSO protest to fill my car up with petrol, it’s pouring more trauma on an already difficult time.
Well said! Your final paragraph is excellent, and shows a deep understanding.
Why is it so traumatic?
If your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?
But why is it only abortion that has these zones? Unions can picket work entrances and be intimidating with banners. Students at Sussex University barracked, held signs and intimidated Prof Kathleen Stock. I don’t agree with intimidation but why is abortion singled out for special prohibitive laws?
Abortion is a classic gaslighting issue. Always presented as being about women’s rights, when it is no such thing. Women have, at the least, equal rights to any man in the UK.
The issue is about the unborn child’s rights, and to what extent an unborn child has rights.
Abortion is never discussed in these terms, instead the straw man (no pun) fallacy of ‘women’s rights’ is used to frame the argument.
So if your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?
Why does this lady think it’s her business to ‘talk’ to someone going about their own business?
If you were entering a supermarket and some complete stranger was standing outside offering to ‘talk’ about the detrimental effect that these businesses have on farmers, would you be obliged to talk to them?
As Laura Perrins acknowledges, this lady’s obvious intention was to influence in one direction. Was she open to be influenced herself, but in the opposite direction? After all, isn’t that what a conversation is about.
If the objective of the pro-lifers or the Christians was merely to talk and not to subject these women to verbal and physical insults there would have been no need for these buffer zones. These Christians clearly are not aware that for centuries in the ancient Roman world there was no Christian objection to the practice of disposing of unwanted new-borns.
Abortion virtually on demand is a necessity to maintain the sexually permissive society. Caring for a child diminishes libido. Abortion is a necessary counterpart to contraception. And a country that can accept a quarter of a million abortions a year has no grounds to object to a few hundred or even some thousands of people choosing state-assisted dying each year.
I think this blatantly isn’t a straightforward issue of freedom of speech/expression being denied either. It’s now apparent that at least some of these clinics have been experiencing real problems with people standing outside harassing people entering the building. As a staff member going into your place of work daily, it’s obviously a problem for them too, not just the women using the facilities. I’ve read elsewhere of people hanging around being verbally abusive and even filming staff coming and going then uploading their pictures to further target them in a hate campaign. So this buffer zone thing is obviously not coming from the government wanting to censor free speech, for once, but it’s a justified response to the clinic reporting these repeated issues. Probably the police got sick of being called out to remove problematic troublemakers and so this is the product of that.
Of course, the self-righteous, who see the topic of abortion through a very rigid, black and white lens, with their selective sanctimony, won’t agree with this rational viewpoint. It must be nice inhabiting the moral highground permanently so that one always gets to feel superior to those in society one constantly denigrates and looks down on, I suppose.🙄
Mogwai, why is it only abortion protest that is legislated against and not all forms of vocal and intimidating protest? Why is abortion singled out? If all forms of loud and demanding protest were banned, fair enough, but why is abortion deemed a special case?
I agree that there should be more legislation for others who intimidate. As you say, at the universities where large groups of terrorist-supporting students would intimidate Jews, or anybody else that supported Israel, for instance. But then you’ll get free speech absolutists who think all of this falls under the ‘freedom of speech/right to peacefully protest’ umbrella. It can be a fine line to tread and can become a bit ambiguous sometimes. I’m obviously a proponent of free speech but not an absolutist, so I think many of these Jihadi flag-waving, Jew/West-hating nutters should’ve been removed. The dratted eco loons who block roads are another lot that should never be pandered to, but the police were bringing them refreshments.🤯
Basically, if you’re preventing people going about their day to day business and making a nuisance of yourself you should be dealt with.
Claphamanian, can you reference your assertion that:
”Christians clearly are not aware that for centuries in the ancient Roman world there was no Christian objection to the practice of disposing of unwanted new-borns.”
The sanctity of human life has always been a Christian priority even to rescuing abandoned Roman babies:
https://earlychurchhistory.org/medicine/infanticide-in-the-ancient-world/
I do not think a large group of demonstrators loudly proclaiming the pro-life arguments outside an abortion clinic is acceptable. That could be interpreted as intimidation.
It’s a question of proportion.
And one woman, standing quietly holding a placard and offering to talk to someone is not intimidation. (Neither is someone standing quietly praying.)
If a woman preparing to enter the clinic CHOOSES to have a conversation with someone who is offering one, that is her right.
But I presume what’s happened is that they’ve had to bring in these laws and make it a blanket restriction throughout. Because how impractical is it to police and say, “Well this person is yelling abuse and intimidating people entering the building, therefore they need to be removed, but this lady is quietly holding a sign so she should be left in peace.”? This is probably what happened before the law came in but clinics would be having to ring up police regularly to remove people. It’s more practical to standardise a law than apply it on a case by case basis. Nobody is stopping people holding signs or praying ( exercising their right to freedom of speech/expression ) outside of the restriction zone.
A lot of comments below seem to accept, without question, the clinic’s claim that there have been 500 instances of ‘harassment’ of women entering. And Livia was convicted of harassment – for offering to TALK – so we know what their idea of harassment is.
I bet those 500 incidents were no such thing. The staff probably just totalled up the nuns and pensioners standing silently outside every day and decided every appearance was an intimidation. Seems that me that a bit of scepticism (pun intended) is required.
Nonsense! Dangerous nonsense.
There is no Right to persuade. If that exists it must open up to a Right to be listened to, which must then open up to a Right to force people to be made to listen.
There is a passive Common Law Right to speak, express oneself in words, spoken and written. The principle of Common Law is nobody can enjoy their Rights at the expense of others.
People who hang around entrances to abortion clinics are there for a reason. What is it?
It is to emotionally Blackmail, intimidate, to cause distress, to deter people already with a difficult situation to handle.
If someone doesn’t agree with abortion, don’t have one, but leave others alone.
Nobody has a Right to be a bloody nuisance to others for any reason.
Hear, hear!
“A woman has been prosecuted for holding a sign saying “here to talk…”
No she wasn’t – stop the naïvety – she was prosecuted for the distress she would cause and knew she was likely to cause.
Exactly. I have asked the Vatican Extremists above this honest question, and will be interested in their replies:
“If your 13-year-old daughter got pregnant from being kidnapped and gang-raped by Muslims, would you be happy to raise that child as your own grandchild?”
Still waiting for any “Yes” or “No” answers…
Yes of course I would .It isn’t the child or the mothers fault. All babies should have the right to exist. And not be cut into pieces in the womb.
Not allowed as it might make some people actually think
You assume that women and girls make such a traumatic decision lightly, without thinking?