I used to be liberal on the abortion issue. To me, the issue was viability. If the embryo is not viable outside the uterus, then abortion could be tolerated. The current 24 week limit (in Great Britain) could, admittedly, do with review, since a 24 week old foetus can be viable with modern medical technology. So it should only be revised down. I was of the view that abortion, within such a time limit, was the lesser evil compared to bringing an unwanted child into the world.
Then, in May 2016, I suddenly changed my mind. In May 2016, the Royal College of Midwives announced their decision to support a campaign to scrap the time limit on abortion and sweep away all current legal restrictions. Thankfully, there was a storm of protest, both from rank-and-file midwives and also MPs. It appeared that the Royal College’s chief executive, Cathy Warwick, had “ridden roughshod” over majority opinion.
Be that as it may, it made me understand the direction of travel. I knew the issue of abortion without time limit would be back. Feminist causes that initially seem so extreme that they surely cannot triumph have a habit of doing so after a remarkably short time. So it proved.
In March this year, 2026, an amendment to the Crime & Policing Bill to decriminalise abortion up to full term passed both Houses of Parliament.
The clause that decriminalises abortion up to birth was introduced by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi last year. The House of Commons passed the legislation back in June despite only 46 minutes of debate on the issue. Amendments were tabled in the House of Lords in an attempt to stop it but the Lords voted down the amendments and the clause permitting abortion up to birth was passed for inclusion in the Crime & Policing Bill.
A further safeguard, namely the requirement for an in-person consultation with a medical professional before being prescribed medication to terminate a pregnancy, has also been withdrawn in the amended legislation. The Lords voted down a second amendment aimed at preventing the removal of this safeguard. Hence, what has been dubbed the ‘pills by post’ scheme is now effectively sanctioned.
The Bill has not yet been enacted (as of 22/4/26) but it has passed the Committee stage and had its 3rd reading in both Houses of Parliament and these rulings look certain to become law.
I have expressed my views on abortion without time limit already, here.
Christians Arrested for Lone Silent Prayer
Readers should note that I am not a Christian. In supporting their right to unintrusive silent prayer I am a disinterested party.
On 16th October 2024 Adam Smith-Connor was found guilty of praying silently outside an abortion clinic. The Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court found Smith-Connor guilty of silent prayer stemming from an event in Bournemouth in 2022. The court sentenced Smith-Connor to a conditional discharge and ordered him to pay prosecution costs of £9,000 (about $12,000), as reported by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International. The conditional discharge stipulates that Smith-Connor “will be sentenced if he is convicted of any future offenses in the next two years”.
In its decision, the court reasoned that his prayer amounted to “disapproval of abortion” because at one point his head was seen slightly bowed and his hands were clasped. Smith-Connor had been praying on a public green within the 150 metre “buffer zone” in which authorities have banned anything that is deemed to be aimed at discouraging women from having an abortion, which is being interpreted to mean any indication however indirect or subtle of pro-life belief. According to ADF, “Smith-Connor was confronted by officers who asked ‘what is the nature of your prayer?’”.
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council is close to bankruptcy but nevertheless spent more than £90,000 ($120,000) on legal fees to prosecute the “offence”.
Following a similar incident, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested in December 2025 for silent prayer outside an abortion clinic . In 2022, Vaughan-Spruce was arrested twice under a local buffer zone order but was later acquitted after prosecutors offered no evidence in court. Catholic priest Father Gough was also charged initially but charges eventually dropped. In 2024, Vaughan-Spruce reached a settlement of £13,000 with West Midlands Police after successfully challenging the lawfulness of those arrests. Since then the new buffer zone legislation has come in (in October 2024). She will now face trial in October 2026. The case is likely to set a precedent regarding whether silent prayer, unaccompanied by overt behaviour, is sufficient to fall foul of this law.
Public Order Act section 9, para 1(a), states, “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.”
The UK Parliament voted to roll out 150m “buffer zones” around every abortion facility in England & Wales as part of the Public Order Act 2023. The issue was debated under the previous Conservative government in November 2020 and there was an agreement to implement, though Ministers then were in no rush. The Labour Government, after taking office in July’24, implemented the zones on 31st October 2024.
Open Iftar
It is appropriate to contrast the experience of lone Christians arrested for silent prayer with the reception enjoyed by large public gatherings of Muslims engaged in loud prayer. Of course this was not near abortion clinics, so the reader can decide if the comparison is apposite.
Around 3,000 Muslims, including Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London, held a mass public prayer meeting – called an Open Iftar – in London’s central Trafalgar Square to mark Ramadan on 16 March 2026. An Open Iftar involves prayer being loudly led by an Imam, typically using a PA system at large gatherings.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch backed her Justice spokesman Nick Timothy after he described the mass Muslim prayers in Trafalgar Square as an “act of domination”. He stated, “The adhan – which declares there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger – is, when called in a public place, a declaration of domination and therefore division” noting that “the domination of public places is straight from the Islamist playbook”. Vitriolic condemnation ensued from all voices on the left, including the very woke Attorney General, inevitably calling for Timothy’s sacking. (I note that Iftar practice sex segregation; women are pushed to the back).
Saudi Arabia has banned the use of loudspeakers and prayer broadcasts in Iftar gatherings, and banned holding Iftar in mosques. This appears to be part of the Saudi’s attempts to reduce the influence of Islam in public life.
Open Iftars have been held in Windsor Castle and at many churches, including Westminster Cathedral. The Church of England (CofE) has published guidance on how to hold Iftars in CofE churches, encouraging the practice. Some churches are now hosting regular weekly Muslim prayer meetings. There are 2,838 mosques in the UK.
In contrast, while interfaith events may sometimes be held in mosques, as far as I am aware no fully Christian service or prayer meeting has ever been held in a mosque in the UK.
The Supreme Governor of the CofE, and Defender of the Faith, is the King. At the start of Ramadan, King Charles III made a State Banquet speech in the presence of the Muslim head of state in Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu, opening the speech with the words “Assalamu Alaikum”, an Arabic greeting that means “peace be upon you”, acknowledging the start of the Muslim holy month. And yet the King failed to make any sign he acknowledged the start of Lent, the nearest Christian analogue of Ramadan, and also declined to make any sign of Christian observation or speech at Easter, the most significant date of the Christian calendar.
The most damning indictment of the UK’s uncritical embrace of Islam is the fact that the United Arab Emirates has ceased funding its students attending UK universities due to their concerns that our universities are a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalist indoctrination, especially as influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE is still happy to fund its students at universities in the USA, Australia, Israel and France. Let that sink in.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England, inaugurated on 25 March 2026, is a woman for the first time. Her first announcement as the new clerical leader of the CofE was to commit to tackling misogyny. Clearly the Archbishop will not be the saviour of the CofE either. One feels desperately sorry for genuine Christians who are members of the CofE. One presumes that many will leave for other churches.