CV NEWS FEED // A U.S. State Department bureau is monitoring the case of a British woman who was brought to trial for engaging in peaceful conversations with abortion-minded women inside a “buffer zone” around an abortion facility.
CatholicVote previously reported that Livia Tossici-Bolt, a retired medical scientist, was charged with violating a public spaces protection order for standing inside the buffer zone with a sign reading “Here to talk if you want.” She now faces criminal charges and is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
District Judge Orla Austin will hand down a verdict on Tossici-Bolt’s case April 4. The U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) announced on X March 30 that it is monitoring the case.
“We are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom,” the organization stated.
According to the statement, Vice President JD Vance has also said he has concerns about censorship in the U.K.
Notably, Judge Austin is the same judge who ruled last year that Army veteran Adam Smith-Connor was guilty of violating the protection order by silently praying within the buffer zone. Smith-Connor was sentenced to a two-year conditional discharge and fined 9,000, CatholicVote previously reported. According to an emailed news release from ADF International, Smith-Connor is appealing his conviction.
In the same news release, Tossici-Bolt expressed gratitude to DRL for watching her case.
“I’m grateful to the US administration for prioritising the preservation and promotion of freedom of expression and for engaging in robust diplomacy to that end,” she stated. “It deeply saddens me that the UK is seen as an international embarrassment when it comes to free speech. My case, involving only a mere invitation to speak, is but one example of the extreme and undeniable state of censorship in Great Britain today.”
Legal Counsel for ADF International Jeremiah Igunnubole stated in the release that the US’ concern over the welfare of censored U.K. citizens is key to the relationship between the two countries.
“True friends do not stand idly by as their friends blindly walk into a ditch. The robust protection of fundamental freedoms has historically formed the basis of the special relationship between the UK and the US — a relationship that’s now needlessly strained due, in large part, to the current censorial trajectory of Britain,” he stated. “It is right for the US State Department and JD Vance to warn the UK that censorship is antithetical to freedom, democracy, and societal flourishing.”
ADF International added that the case of Rose Docherty, a 73-year-old Christian grandmother in Scotland, also points to the censorship rising in the U.K. Docherty was arrested for holding a sign that read “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want” in a buffer zone around an abortion facility. A public prosecutor recently sent her a letter requiring her to accept that her actions were illegal, which she rejected. She is supported by ADF International.
ADF International added in the news release that measures in Scotland have become more extreme, as last year residents of houses within buffer zones received a letter from the Scottish government that stated “Activities in a private place (such as inside a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a Zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the Zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.”
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