As Lords Approve Abortion 'Exlusion Zones" is Tory Party ‘Natural Home’ of Catholics?

The Catholic Herald has reported on that on Wednesday evening last week, the "Catholics In The Conservative Party" group hosted a formal launch event in the Houses of Parliament. 

The group aims to support, recruit and mentor Catholics in the Conservative party and public life to ensure that the Catholic voice is always heard in government. Having been officially founded in 2020 during the trials of the pandemic, the group was at long last able to host a formal reception to celebrate its inception. 

Headlining the evening was guest speaker and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. In his speech, he stressed the necessity for conservative Catholics to flourish in government. 

“Do not allow people to think that the Labour Party is the natural home of Catholics because it isn’t any more. Indeed, it is very difficult to be a Labour Catholic nowadays because on the conscience issues you have to take the conscience of Marx from the conscience of Christ. I admire those socialists who break their whip and still stand up for Catholic views on abortion and so on, but they are finding it harder and harder.” 

Rees-Mogg encouraged members to find the mettle within themselves to stand up for Catholic values in public life. “What I’m saying to all of you today, is that actually being a Catholic in public life is not difficult. It is not as hard as you might think, and it gives you the security of knowing you have the truth behind you. This is important.”

Catholic values have been increasingly threatened in the public sphere of late. The Public Order Bill and its “buffer zone amendment”, for example, promises to target those who attempt to pray silently outside abortion clinics. 

Rees-Mogg referred to this, saying “we have some really serious issues to contend with. Currently, before Parliament, there is the suggestion wending its way through the membership of the House of Lords that praying silently outside of an abortion clinic should be illegal. This is absolutely monstrous as it’s a thought crime. 

“How do you know if someone’s praying?… This isn’t just a Catholic issue, it is a freedom of conscience issue and a practicality issue.

“But we must also be ready to protect life at the end of life. I think euthanasia is the great next moral threat. Every country that has adopted it has found that they do it for the hardest cases, the ones that pull at the heartstrings and then suddenly you’re talking about, in Canada, where 12-year-olds are, in fact, mature enough to decide to end their own lives. We as Catholics have an absolute duty to stand up to that.” 

It was this point that was highlighted by the second speaker of the evening, Marie Southall, Director of Public Affairs for the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales. “Now more than ever we need a Catholic voice in the public space. As you all know, it’s not always easy being a Catholic involved in politics. In this world of declining religious literacy, it can often be an isolating decision or one where there’s misunderstanding and stereotypes. Groups such as this one provide a safe space with peer-to-peer support, which is so essential in the political world,” she said.

These words emphasise the importance of groups such as Catholics In The Conservative Party. With ten parliamentary patrons, including names such as Rt. Hon. Damian Hinds and Sir Edward Leigh, the group has ensured its voice in government is heard and through its members has secured the same on more grassroot levels. 

The importance of the launch of this parliamentary group cannot be underestimated: Catholic representation on all levels of government is now more important than ever. Catholic standards must be highlighted. It is only through supporting groups such as this that these increasingly endangered values can be protected in society.

This was reported on the day the House of Lords backed the national roll out of buffer zones around abortion clinics. Peers voted in favour a move to criminalise activity that seeks to “influence” the decision of women booked in for abortions to go ahead with the procedure.

The Lords rejected an amendment to investigate the evidence that would justify so-called exclusion zones and the corresponding denial of the recognised human rights of association, conscience, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. They supported Amendment 45, tabled by Conservative peer Baroness Sugg of Coldharbour, to make it a crime to influence “any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services”.

It also makes it a criminal offence to cause “harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services” within 150 metres of an abortion clinic. Lady Sugg told the Lords that Amendment 45 was “a more legally robust clause, it is compliant with human rights, it delivers the intent to protect women when they are accessing their legal right to healthcare”.

She said: “I do not support another review by the Home Office. I wish this legislation was not necessary, but every week around 2,000 women use abortion clinics that are now regularly targeted by protesters. This activity is on the rise and much of it is organised and funded by groups from the United States. Action is needed to ensure that we do not allow this activity to escalate here in the UK. We are seeing these zones introduced in France, Spain, Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland and soon in Scotland as well. It is really important that we give women in England and Wales the same protection that women are getting in those jurisdictions.”

Lord Weir of Ballyholme, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, Lord Cormack and Baroness Fox of Buckley all spoke about the potentially serious implications of an amendment which would criminalise basic principles of democracy and free speech. Lord Weir raised concerns about a criminal offence of “influence”, saying that “surely at the heart of the concept of freedom of speech, and the value of democracy, is the peaceful way in which people try to persuade others of their point of view. Where that goes beyond the art of persuasion towards any level of threat or intimidation, it is unacceptable and should be criminal, but if we are criminalising expressions of opinion or influence, that is fundamentally wrong.”

Lady Fox, a supporter of abortion, told peers that “influencing is the basis of democracy” and that women must also be “free to change their mind at any time and in any direction, up until either termination or what have you, It is not coercive if you think again."

Several peers said the amendment could ban silent prayer and referred to Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic arrested in December for praying silently outside a closed Birmingham abortion facility buffered by a Public Space Protection Order granted by the local authority.

Lord Jackson said the Vaughan-Spruce case along with that of Adam Smith-Connor in Bournemouth “took people by surprise, since they were not aware that silent prayer had become criminalised in this country, These cases further highlight the dangers to free expression and belief inherent in these buffer zones. They demonstrate how quickly the position could be that the specific act that turns someone into a criminal is whether they had particular thoughts in their head while in a buffer zone area. This amendment does not actually exclude the outside [areas] of private property, so anyone who is in their private garden or their own car expressing their conscience could be criminalised.”