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The Latest in Protest Styles
Birmingham, UK is the latest jurisdiction to promote a wonderful new style of witness and protest. In the latest in a string of such arrests in the UK, Isabel Vaughn-Spruce was ripped from her daily constitutional and accused of praying silently outside of an abortion clinic.
Now, it is very good practice to pray when passing an abortion clinic. Nothing draws demons like mothers killing their children, unless it is medical personnel talking them into it and helping them in the commission of the atrocity. It’s probably a slippery slope thing for Birmingham. If people pray silently, they might discourage the demons that infest these places, spilling out everywhere, and send them to the foot of the Cross to be dealt with. Birmingham politicians have a huge stake in keeping the abortion mills running and the demons in bad spirits to encourage the butchery they call “women’s health care.” Nothing says evil like a mother killing her own child. Unless it is a Birmingham cop arresting a woman for disturbing the pandaemonium. Bonnie King Charles must be very proud.
For my part, I have used the occasion to step up my protest game, praying silent prayers for Isabel, for the appalling oafs that make the arrests, for the pathetic mothers beyond all decency and moral compass, for the medical staffs that betray millennia of medical ethics and divine revelation. Praying for the politicians that have erected the whole diabolical house of cards. Praying several times a day, wherever I am, as the spirit moves me. And these sad, impotent tyrants in places like Birmingham lack the slightest power to stop me, or the One I pray to.
Prayers have no effect, you say? The UK has been beclowning itself with these depraved antics for a while. It draws attention to the abortion clinics. And the ever-increasing mountain of corpses.
May the Lord bless you and guide your steps, Isabel, as you cast a stark light on the darkness. Amen.
Published in Politics
Amen!
This episode isn’t actually about abortion. It’s about freedom of speech.
I remember when, back in the nineties, some in congress proposed an Amendment outlawing the burning of the American flag. Nobody was actually burning flags, but the proposal served its purpose, ginning up a passionate debate that no doubt distracted us all nicely from some legislative or administrative horror or other.
But I remember telling my husband that, if such an amendment were to be adopted, it would instantly render the burning of an American flag a reasonable patriotic act—because freedom of speech is a fundamental value, and burning a flag is speech. “I would even,” I said, “go so far as to sew a slightly-singed flag patch onto my jacket.” He was appalled, but I still think I had a point.
That a woman was arrested by a polite bobby in England for thinking…ought to mean that every liberty-minded Briton ought to be protesting. But how?
What if a continuous stream of people showed up, one at a time, in front of the the clinic, to stand silently on the sidewalk, looking vaguely but provocatively pious? Go ahead, Bobby. Prove I’m praying.
Like the Chinese protesters, holding up a white sheet of paper.
Adapted from what I commented in the PIT:
“I was standing here imagining that I’d be addressed by an inquisitive retard. What are you doing?”
Outstanding post. You cut right to the heart of the matter. My kind of thinking. Excellent.
Abortion protest vs. free speech protest? Embrace the power of and. Speech restrictions are always about the object of the speech. Power finds speech that spotlights their evil offensive. “How dare you remind our Big Donors that they are barbarous monsters engaging in a vile, degraded way of life, leaving victims with less attractive, deplorable, really, donation profiles strewn all across the body politic? How rude!”
Just ask Fr. Frank Pavone, who has just been handed a big old stick to whack the Catholic hierarchy with for decades to come, may the Lord bless him always.
Just hopping in here because that was an outstanding line. Great writing
If nothing else, even the atheists among us can mutter a silent prayer of thanks. I’m grateful that my own right to life was honored
It’s about freedom of “non”-speech. Which makes it even more alarming. She was silent. It was her thinking that was a criminal act.
But, yes, it was also about the state-approved sacrament of abortion. Both/and, as we Catholics like to say.
I’m glad that sentence landed for you. One never knows what a reader might respond to.
‘“The PSPO protecting the area around Robert Clinic focuses on ensuring people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation. Any local authority seeking to implement a PSPO must have robust evidence for its introduction, which guides the conditions and location – this includes concerns and complaints received from the community,” a Birmingham City Council spokesperson said when the order was granted.’
Apparently they mean, ‘no witnesses.’ Which I get – people can feel the wrongness which is why pro-choice is so…encouraging.
Always remember that free speech is guaranteed in the US but not so much anywhere else.
True, but the UK likes to be seen as a paragon of civil liberties, whatever the truth. Turning a mirror on such is always fair game. There is always tension between virtue and law.
Agreed. That is not supposed to happen there.
Why do you think that freedom of speech is the sole fundamental value, the one that trumps all of the others?
It has never been that way, in our law, and is not today. The differences are obvious, though. Pornography and obscenity, for example, used to be prohibited, without the law considering this a violation of the freedom of speech protected in the First Amendment. Now, it is other expressions that are prohibited, such as opposition to abortion.
This probably isn’t quite right, WC. I suspect that it was her actions during her silent prayer. There are gestures common to praying, in the way that we hold our hands and bow our heads, for example. Or kneeling, or looking up.
This distinction doesn’t make the actions of the English authorities right. They are serving the Evil One.
Yes, there’s a bloodlust on the Left. Especially for pre-born children.
Luckily we still have freedom of speech here in the U. S…….at least until another democrat wins the White House.
Or shaking on the floor and handling snakes. Well, all facts not in evidence, as they say.
She was arrested for silently praying in front of an abortion clinic. That is a “charge” with two components, standing out in front (not blocking, not confronting) being one of them. The other one is pure Thought Police.
Oi! You got a loicense for that opinion?
Good point. There’s also the freedom to practice your religion.
Five freedoms are protected by the First Amendment, yet the pixel-stained wretches of the Fourth Estate only take one of them seriously – and gate-keep the hell out of that one, to be honest.
!
They only do ink as an afterthought nowadays.
The only ink they know is on their face tattoos.
We can only hope they will one day go to coding school.
GIGO.
The hidden irony of this post is that it was written on the first day I lost my voice with the latest bug. A respectable fever, asthma inhaler at full intensity, and coughing lungs up day and night. I have a regular set of daily prayers that are to be vocalized, not just prayed silently, and that has not even been possible. But the silent prayers have been going out almost constantly in the breach. Some for Isabel, some for GLW with her awful vision trials, some for the people, and the Christmas communions I have missed. And for some friends who keep a regular prayer date at an abortion clinic during the week when I have to work. And, of course, for the students and their parents of the K-2 down the street whose principal has welcomed Satan as an after-school tenant. I will have more on that story when I am doing better.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Sorry you spent your holiday in misery. At least you have 12 more days of Christmas and hopefully (prayerfully) you’ll feel well enough to enjoy them! Merry Christmas, Sisyphus.
The secret to misery is distraction, and this place is a first class distraction.
Wonderful post!!
I didn’t say it was the sole fundamental value, nor that it was the one that trumps all of the others. I said: “because freedom of speech is a fundamental value, and burning a flag is speech.”
But yes, I do indeed believe that freedom of thought, religion, conscience and expression are bedrock, and so did the founders, who placed this God-given right at the top of their list.
When the Wokestapo start throwing their weight around, which right do they primarily seek to interfere with or abrogate? From the COVID-panicked closure of churches (but not casinos) to the conspiracy between Twitter (et al) and the alphabet soup of would-be American Stasi agencies, it is the First Amendment that tyrants dislike and freedom-lovers must defend.
Freedom to peaceably assemble? Gotta tell people about the rally, ergo freedom of speech.
Freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances? Gotta tell people what the petition is, what to sign, and where, ergo freedom of speech.
You ought to also have the freedom to stand quietly out of the way in public without having an intellectually sub-normal flatfoot asking you “wots all this then.” I’m still working on the wording for that last one.
No, you nailed it! :-)