Pro-life voices are being silenced all across the world.
On Thursday, Spain’s Congress of Deputies passed a bill that would punish pro-life sidewalk counselors with jail time just for reaching out to pregnant mothers outside abortion facilities, Spanish News Today reports. The legislation passed in a 204-144 vote in the lower house and now moves to the Senate for consideration.
Abortion activists claim its purpose is to prevent women seeking abortions from being harassed, but pro-life sidewalk counselors are overwhelmingly peaceful.
Even praying outside abortion facilities would be criminalized if the legislation passes. According to the report, “… people who harass women entering abortion centers or the staff that work in them ‘through offensive, intimidating or coercive’ acts, such as taunting or praying” could be punished with jail time.
“Prayer is not freedom of expression if the end result is coercion,” according to a statement from a pro-abortion feminist group that supports the bill, Spanish News Today reports.
The bill also does not require there to be a complaint from the woman seeking an abortion for the pro-lifer to be prosecuted, the report states. This means pro-lifers could go to jail for helping pregnant mothers who welcome the information and support that they provide.
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Spark Chronicles reports pro-lifers who pray or reach out to women in violation of the ban could be sentenced to up to 12 months in prison and up to 80 days of community service.
All across the world, abortion activists are working to erode free speech rights through legislation like the Spain bill. In the U.S., a number of major cities have “buffer zone” ordinances that prohibit pro-life advocates from doing outreach within a certain number of feet of an abortion facility.
In England, a man in a wheel chair was arrested in 2019 for praying for women and unborn babies outside an abortion facility in West London. And last year, Western Australia lawmakers passed a massive 150-meter buffer zone around abortion facilities with up to 12 months in jail for violators.
Buffer zones violate pro-life advocates’ freedom of speech and hurt mothers and babies. Outside abortion facilities across the world, pro-lifers offer information and resources to help parents choose life for their babies. They provide information and support that abortion facilities often do not, such as facts about fetal development and pregnancy/parenting resources in the community. Many pro-lifers also pray for those victimized by the abortion industry and offer counseling and other help to post-abortive women.
The abortion industry knows that pro-life sidewalk counselors help mothers choose life for their unborn babies — thus cutting into their profits. Pro-abortion groups spend huge amounts of money lobbying lawmakers to pass buffer zones, which make it harder for pro-lifers to offer the help that so many mothers are desperately seeking for themselves and their babies.
