A court in Northern Ireland is set to rule on the case of a woman arrested for praying inside of an abortion exclusion zone.
Antrim woman Clare Brennan, 52, became the first person to be arrested under Northern Ireland’s abortion exclusion zones legislation, less than a week after the law went into effect outside facilities providing abortions.
Mrs Brennan, who was arrested last October at the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, now faces being convicted after being told she was “ignorant” and “stubborn” for refusing to move outside the exclusion zone.
In 2021, a Bill to enforce exclusion or ‘censorship’ zones outside facilities where abortions are performed received backing from a majority of political parties at Stormont, including Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance, Ulster Unionists, People before Profit and the Green Party.
The legislation had been introduced by former Greens MLA, Clare Bailey, a former abortion centre escort. It followed the imposition of abortion on the province by the Westminster government in 2019 during the collapse of the NI Assembly.
In March of 2022, the Bill was passed at Stormont, prompting elated cheering and dancing at Parliament Buildings, in scenes which divided many.
All five Health and Social Care Trusts in the province now have zones criminalising anyone who hands out pro-life literature or speaks to anyone about abortion within a 100-250m radius of an abortion clinic or hospital.
Mrs Brennan is set to challenge the prosecution at Coleraine Magistrates Court on Tuesday, 30th July, after she was arrested along with a colleague outside the county Derry hospital. She is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, who say that for breaching the ‘safe access zones’ legislation and praying ‘The Lord’s Prayer,’ she faces being fined or six months imprisonment if found guilty.
Whilst the zones had been challenged by the NI Attorney General in 2022, who expressed concerns that they were inconsistent with the right to peaceful protest, this challenge was dismissed and the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act later came into law.
Video footage of Mrs Brennan’s arrest shows her on her knees at a traffic island opposite the hospital. In the footage, she is praying with rosary beads and holding a sign reading, ‘Pray to End Abortion’:
The sign said: ‘Praying for the Rosary for Ireland. Please join us. As human efforts fail to solve Ireland’s key problems we turn to God, through his holy mother, asking for his help.”
In the footage, she is repeatedly asked to leave the exclusion zone by an officer who tells her she is “stubborn” and “ignorant” for refusing to leave.
Christian Concern said in a statement:
“Mrs Brennan had quietly said to herself and her colleague the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary 10 times, the Apostles Creed and the Divine Mercy.
“The officers, however, asked Mrs Brennan to move outside of the buffer zone. In response, she said: “Officer, you have a duty to uphold the law, and I have a duty to uphold God’s law. This is where we pray.” She added that: “We are not committing any offences.”
The officer can be heard responding, “In the eye of the law you are,” before telling the protestor that she is causing “harassment, alarm and distress” by being there.
Mrs Brennan responded: “The law of the land stops me from upholding the law of God… We pray for the babies who will be imminently killed in this hospital.”
A second officer can then be seen attempting to persuade Mrs Brennan to move on, however she responded by saying she had a “moral duty” to stay and pray at the spot.
The officer can be heard saying: “You are being ignorant now. You are breaking the law.”
“I apologise for that,” Mrs Brennan said.
“Apology is no good”, the officer responded, adding: “You need to remove yourself.”
The officer later pointed and said: “Claire, you are really stubborn and ignorant, right, because you are breaking the law.”
However, Mrs Brennan, along with her male colleague, continued to refuse to move from where they were praying. Christian Concern have pointed out that during the incident, they had not encountered or spoken to anyone apart from the police officers.
They were then arrested and were later charged without a police interview.
‘I BELIEVE I HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG’
Ahead of the hearing, Mrs Brennan said: “It is a deeply disturbing law which tells free citizens that they will be arrested if they pray.
“The expansion of abortion services in Northern Ireland in recent years has been appalling. Our laws, beliefs and culture on upholding and protecting life in this country have been trampled on.
Mrs Brennan said she believes the legislation “discriminates against Christian beliefs and their expression.”
“If we are not free to express prayer against abortion outside of a clinic without being criminalised, then none of us are free,” she added.
“I believe I have done absolutely nothing wrong. If the courts find that I have and decide to convict me then we are in a very dark place indeed.
“I cannot go against my conscience and do nothing whilst innocent babies are aborted in this country. Praying is the most important thing I can do to help and I and everyone else must be free to do that, even outside of an abortion clinic.
“I will fight for justice and will continue to pray to end abortion for as long as it takes,” she said.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “In Northern Ireland, it has been shown that laws restricting abortion saved more than 100,000 lives in the years from 1967 to 2016.
“For more than 50 years, the law in Northern Ireland only permitted abortion if it was necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman. The 1967 Abortion Act in England and Wales, which is widely interpreted to permit abortion on request, was not extended to NI.
“Since that law changed in March 2020, there has been a two and a half times increase in the annual number of abortions. This is a tragedy, and anyone who cares about protecting life should be especially concerned by what has happened in Northern Ireland in recent years.
“Buffer zones are an oppressive part of the current culture which force consent and silence dissent. The saddest thing of all is that we are actually talking about human lives.
“We stand with Claire as she fights for justice and believe the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act (Northern Ireland) 2023 must be repealed,” Ms Williams added.
The number of abortions carried out in Northern Ireland has increased since the law change. Latest figures from the NI Department of Health show that in the year since March 2020, when the law was changed, there were almost 1,600 abortions,
That figure increased to over 2,100 between April 2022 and March 2023. Some 1,663 abortions were carried out on women aged 18 to 34, while 409 abortions were performed on women over 35. 60 abortions involved women under the age of 18.
The UK Supreme Court, in its ruling relating to the ‘Safe Access Zones’ Bill, in March 2023, unanimously found that the Bill did not breach the ECHR rights of those who wished to carry out the activities set out above near abortion clinics. In particular, it considered that:
The protests were frequent and had a significant adverse impact on women and girls seeking treatment; and there was no way for them to avoid those protests if they wanted to obtain abortions.
Further, it affirmed that the ECHR does not provide any freedom of forum – i.e. the protestors were able to make their point elsewhere. It ruled that in these circumstances, it was acceptable to have a general rule criminalising all protest in this area rather than requiring individual complaints to be made about specific behaviour that may have amounted to pre-existing criminal offences.
UPDATED: During Tuesday’s hearing at Coleraine Magistrates Court, the case was adjourned, with a date for a hearing to be fixed at a later date.