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Praying in Scotland
In the interest of full disclosure, and it shouldn’t be a shock given my last name, I am of Scottish ancestry, even on both sides of my family. Given the Left turn that Scotland has taken, I must say that I am immensely grateful that my ancestors emigrated to America. This was even before new abortion laws in Scotland could criminalize praying within a “safe access zone” of abortion clinics, even if a homeowner living within the designated zone can be heard or seen praying within their own home.
It is immensely revealing that abortionists and those so intent to kill unborn children are either offended, fearful, or spitting angry that someone may actually be praying for the soul of the mother to hopefully change her mind, for the soul of the child about to be killed, and even for the soul of the abortionist and his or her helpers to end their vile practice — which some have thankfully done over the years. That politicians and the police in Scotland consider praying in one’s home as potentially reckless and a crime…is a crime — against humanity.
Yes, in very extreme medical cases where an expectant mother is likely to die if the child is delivered, there is a necessity to curtail the birth. But abortion clinics rarely deal with such cases. Hospitals tend to deal with those cases. Abortion clinics by and large exist to provide abortion-on-demand because the unborn child is considered an inconvenience.
From The National Pulse (emphasis mine):
Christian and pro-life groups are raising alarms over new abortion laws in Scotland, which could criminalize prayer even in private homes. The legislation, which took effect last month, establishes 200-meter (~656-feet) “safe access zones” around all abortion clinics, banning activities that supposedly “harass, alarm, or distress” abortionists and their patients—including silent prayer vigils.
Even people living within these zones now face the possibility of prosecution for actions people can see or hear from outside their homes. This means activities such as praying aloud or displaying religious symbols could potentially be treated as crimes.
The Scottish Government led by the left-separatist Scottish National Party (SNP)—roughly equivalent to a U.S. state government—confirmed through letters sent to residents in Edinburgh’s safe zones: “In general, the offenses apply in public places within the safe access zones. However, 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 offense if they can be seen or heard within the zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.”
The late Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once articulated that “a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” Brandeis’s comment has been simplified to “States are the laboratories of democracy.” Of course, Brandeis didn’t live long enough to see the novel social and economic experiments carried out by states like California, Oregon, Washington State, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, to mention a few, that threaten to cause harm to the other states.
Much has been written lately of the fall of Great Britain. It has been so seduced by woke identity politics and the militancy of Leftist ideologues, even making cowards of Tories in Parliament, that it should concern any sober American that Britain could also be a laboratory of failed novel social experiments destined for implementation here in America.
The Department of Justice has already targeted peaceful anti-abortion protesters. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that there are fervent pro-abortion activists within the DOJ and other branches of government who might wish to emulate what Scotland has done – especially if a Harris-Walz administration is elected? Sound farfetched? Tim Walz is a great admirer of the Communist Chinese. What has he learned from them? I also seem to recall that there were several Democrat politicians and operatives who were quite happy with pushing for the arrest and incarceration of climate change deniers.
It is quite sad, though, that we now live in a world where some consider abortion-on-demand a necessity, while at the same time believing that prayer for the redemption of souls and for sparing the lives of the unborn can be reckless. Pray for Scotland. Pray hard.
Rights free photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash
Published in General
This is horrifying.
Seconded.
Let me see if I get this right: If a homeowner puts up a Nativity display on his front yard over Christmas, he goes to jail? What the heck is wrong with Scotland? Where’s William Wallace when you need him . . .
What’s very odd is everywhere you go in Scotland, there are churches. I mean plural. Even small villages have two or three. And large cities have many. The construction is impressive. One could even say, “This is a people who put their faith in God above all else.”
Now they don’t.
One paradox of the Scottish National Party (SNP) is they wish to join the EU. That is not going to happen. Spain that is struggling with the Catalans is not going to vote for Scottish entry into the EU. The second paradox is the SNP will be trading the old tyrant for the new tyrants in the EU.
What Scotland needs is a Scottish Meloni.
Per Comments #3 and #5:
That raises a question:
What if abortion mills set up shop next to churches?
The right to free speech isn’t the only 1st Amendment right under daily attack by Democrats in the US. The attack on religion goes at least as far back as Hillary’s campaign, when the right to religious “expression” was supposedly limited to Sunday services.
Bad as the entire UK is WRT personal freedoms, the Scots have gone over the top, largely thanks to the Scottish National Party. While the current climate is inclined to hagiography of Alex Salmond, the suddenly and recently-deceased SNP leader who brought it to power, the SNP’s fortunes are declining swiftly (largely thanks to Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousef). Unfortunately, the SNP majority will probably be replaced by that of Labour in the next election, which may be a slight–but not much of an–improvement.
Eight years or so ago, the SNP introduced the “Named Person Scheme,” in which every child born in Scotland was automatically assigned a state-appointed guardian who would “safeguard” the welfare of that child. That individual would have served as the only state-recognized “point of contact” for a child until he or she reached the age of 18.
The scheme was withdrawn in 2019 by John Swinney, after his party was unable to make the “named person [scheme] compatible with the [UK] Supreme Court ruling” against it. (The only reason the UK Supreme Court ruled against the scheme was that they found it incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights, one of the few times such an entity has worked in the favor of individual freedoms.)
If it’s any comfort, the afore-mentioned John Swinney is now the SNP leader. I don’t expect it’s much, given the shenanigans of Sturgeon and her husband, and those of Sturgeon’s successor, Humza Yousef who resigned after a short tenure as First Minister for many reasons, including his failure to consolidate the party over “climate change” goals, his continued support of the most radical “trans” agenda in the UK, his several undistinguished past appointments and achievements, and his inability to form any sort of power-sharing agreement with other political parties. Since he’s stepped down, his reputation hasn’t been enhanced by revelations that his in-laws (who were in Gaza on October 7) were put on a priority list for evacuation, or that he sent £250k of taxpayer money to UNRWA in Gaza against ministerial advice, in November 2023. His in-laws were moved out of Gaza the next day. Imagine my surprise.
Nicola Sturgeon’s hi-jinks are not quite so internationally interesting, but are equally at odds with her oath to serve the public.
God help Scotland.
Full disclosure: My sister lives in Scotland, so I have an interest in how all this turns out.
Humza Yousef sure sounds like an old Scottish name.
This is a soviet era type of law which the only way someone could get “caught” praying for the women getting an abortion in their home is if someone within the family reports on it.
Meanwhile in England:
From Breitbart News this morning:
A 74-year-old woman has been charged after silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Scotland less than a week after U.S. Vice President JD Vance highlighted the draconian thought crime laws in the UK.
Starmer also found out last week when he tried to muster a division that their essential equipment was already in Ukraine and had not been replaced yet. Europe is on a road tour of The Mice that Roared.
Moderator Note:
redacted to remove a sexual referenceFrom Breitbart News this morning:
A 74-year-old woman has been charged after silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Scotland less than a week after U.S. Vice President JD Vance highlighted the draconian thought crime laws in the UK.Starmer also found out last week when he tried to muster a division that their essential equipment was already in Ukraine and had not been replaced yet. Europe is on a road tour of The Mice that Roared.Yeah, so much for the notion that only the United States is making financial sacrifices for Ukraine independence from Russia.
Soon after Trump came up with his bald-faced lies about Ukraine and Zelensky after having Putin [express his displeasure for] a couple of days, there was talk about “as much as” 700 billion euros from Europe for Ukraine. Talk is cheap, of course, but if they come up with even half of that (and there is no reason they aren’t capable of it) and do it quickly, it should be enough to drive the Russian military out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, and setting the country up pretty well for future defense.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/02/21/watch-marco-rubio-reveals-why-the-trump-administration-is-so-ticked-at-zelensky-n2185837
Yeah, one has to admire Zelensky for being so mild in his words while Trump is lying about him (“We had a good conversation”).
You also have to admire Zelensky for knowing how to negotiate rings around Trump with that rare earth talk. Unlike Hegseth who gave away our main negotiating points before getting started, Zelensky naturally wasn’t going to sign anything until he knew what the total package would be. That is just common-sense smart, and I imagine Trump is butthurt for being shown up like that.
Perhaps you missed the part about Zelensky lying to the Ukrainian people about what he actually told Vance and Rubio.
Continue with your rant.
Ha! I didn’t think of that as a sexual reference. There was another term I used elsewhere in this thread that I checked with some urban dictionaries to make sure wasn’t a sexual reference before I used it, so I figured that must be where a moderator stepped in. Imagine my surprise to find it here!
Learn something new every day!
Yeah, I missed that. I’m not sure it’s worth mentioning. Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians have easy access to all the information we do, so I’m not too worried about them being able to handle it themselves. Is there any reason why Trump would care? If it’s a disagreement between Trump and Zelensky over who said what, I’d tend to believe the recorded transcript, and lacking that I’d believe Zelensky over Trump any day. They both have a track record.
Well, you may want to listen to the Rubio video in the cited article. Because Rubio is referring to a sit down, face-to-face meeting that he and VP Vance had with Zelensky. Trump was not in the meeting. I understand you are very, very angry at Donald Trump but this information is coming directly from Secretary Rubio.
Rubio has pretty much sold his soul to Trump on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, so I’m not sure that’s a reliable source either. If he and Zelensky sat down together and discussed it in public, that might be more useful. But I may look for a transcript anyway.
…and just to add…I’m not entirely sure why you feel compelled to rant on this post about the ongoing Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations when the OP is really about the lack of freedom of speech and the arrest of a Scottish citizen for a thought crime. Did you lose your way? There are several other posts on Ricochet that are dealing with Ukraine and Russia and the early peace discussions. You may find more receptivity to your incensed rhetoric there.
I didn’t know you were an authority on men who sell their souls. Marco Rubio is a devout Catholic. He was also confirmed to be Secretary of State with a 99-0 vote. I don’t recall any stated fear from Democrat senators that Rubio was likely to “sell his soul” to Donald Trump. Perhaps you need to calm down just a smidge.
I’m not very much of an authority, because at the time of the confirmation I thought he was one of Trump’s good nominees. If I had been shown the receipt for the sale of his soul I would probably have opposed it. The number of Senators in favor is irrelevant. I keep hearing how they can be bought by arms dealers for sums as low as $10K.
So, I haven’t seen a receipt for the sale, but I have seen something that is better than a receipt:
Nobody on planet Earth believes that reason about “first wanting to see whether Moscow was serious.” Giving away the most important bargaining points is not how even the most idiotic negotiator checks for seriousness. There is only one possible explanation for mouthing such nonsense, and that is that Rubio has sold his soul to Trump. If you look at the context of those remarks, you will see that Rubio only doubled down and showed that he hadn’t held back an iota of integrity from the sale.
Get help.
I gotta admit, I can’t argue with that logic.
Another day. Another vindication of what J.D. Vance warned about at the Munich Security Conference.
For those responding to this comment, please address the issue of free expression and government overreach to control speech in Europe and not the developing peace negotiations for the Ukraine-Russia war – or – how Marco Rubio has sold his soul. Replies of this nature will be flagged.
What we have seen in the collapse of the Democratic Party here and the obvious unpopularity of European regimes in general is that they all appear to arise from an attitude of oppressing negative feedback rather than reasonably addressing negative feedback. If a woman’s rapist is back on the street but the woman is sentenced to two years for insulting her rapist on Facebook, something is askew. And arresting and jailing people for complaining online about government arresting and jailing people for complaining about government or criminality online does nothing to improve public perception of the government.
In Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, he talked about how central planning was a doomed endeavor owing to the information problem. Decision makers do not have access to the huge volume of information necessary to make all of the decisions required for a market to work. Instead, the army quartermaster can only give me a shirt that stops at my navel because some guy a continent over didn’t supply shirts my size. Shoes? Forget about it. Markets use signals to drive decisions in ways the central planner simply can’t.
When political speech is driven from the public square, a similar problem arises. The politician takes the absence of biting criticism (or biting criticism only from “canceled” sources, I’m looking at you, Gutfeld) to be positive feedback, when in fact they have stifled the most important information a politician can receive. Where and how are they upsetting people, and why are they upset. Worse, their stifling of the public square tells the constituents that their opinions do not matter and that their political officeholder regard them as garbage.
Trudeau, Starmer, Macron, Scholz, these are the sort of people you end up with under those conditions.
Scottish lawmaker beclowns herself attempting to criticize J. D. Vance (emphasis mine):