Carrying a Bible or praying at a patient’s bedside inside Northern Ireland hospitals could be treated as a crime if it violates abortion buffer zone laws, according to newly issued police guidance in the U.K.
On July 2, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (“PSNI”) issued a written response to the Northern Ireland Policing Board clarifying the scope of the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act (Northern Ireland) 2023 and its impact on hospital clergy and religious ministry.
The law prohibits “influencing,” “preventing or impeding access,” or “causing harassment, alarm or distress” to a protected person within 100 meters (about 328 feet) of facilities where abortions are performed.
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The PSNI clarified that the law does not affect “the vast majority” of hospital chaplains or pastors in their day-to-day work, unless their activities bring them into a protected safe access zone.
However, the law makes “no exemptions” for clergy or religious identity. Carrying Bibles, reading Scripture, consensual pastoral ministry, and praying with a patient during end-of-life care could be considered unlawful if the activity takes place inside a protected zone and is recognized as potentially influencing or distressing a protected person nearby, the PSNI said. Visible or “passive” religious practice may also constitute an offense, “even where no direct approach or communication takes place,” the PSNI added.
The PSNI emphasized that a religious person’s intention behind the activity does not protect them from liability under the law.
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“Describing conduct as pastoral, prayerful or religious in nature does not determine whether an offence has been committed,” the PSNI stated in its guidance. “The test is not how the person describes their own behaviour – it is whether that behaviour, assessed objectively and in its full context, influenced, impeded, or caused distress to a protected person, or was reckless as to whether it did so.”
The guidance comes after retired pastor Clive Johnston, 78, was convicted and fined about $614 in May for preaching a sermon on John 3:16 near a hospital where abortions are performed.
Johnston may be the first person prosecuted under the law for preaching a sermon that did not mention abortion, according to the faith-based advocacy group The Christian Institute, which supported his legal case.
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Pastor Jonathan Campbell of Newbuildings Independent Methodist Church in Londonderry told Fox News Digital that the recent ruling against Johnston and this new guidance has left U.K. Christians uncertain of how to practice religious ministry in a hospital setting without violating the law.
“It’s unthinkable that the Bible, or even just clerical dress, could be off-limits on hospital grounds in case someone might find it offensive,” he stated. “The Christian message is one of hope and comfort to those who are ill, worried and grieving. It cannot be the case that in Northern Ireland, church representatives are unable to comfort those in need.”
He called on the U.K. government to “urgently clarify that Christians remain free to express their faith on hospital grounds and everywhere else.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a PSNI spokesperson said the police service “is not seeking to police religion or lawful pastoral care.”
The spokesperson added that while individuals retain the rights to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression,” those rights “are not absolute and must be balanced against the rights and protections contained in the legislation, and against the rights of others.”
The abortion legislation requires police to assess whether conduct within a buffer zone constitutes behavior criminalized by the law, the spokesperson added.
“This is a fact-specific assessment. It is not determined solely by the presence of religious materials or the identity/role of the person involved,” the statement continued. “The guidance was issued to assist officers to interpret and apply the Act consistently in an operational environment where complaints may arise. It does not create new offences. It reflects the law as enacted.”
Ciarán Kelly, director of The Christian Institute, said the law is “being interpreted in ways that threaten ordinary Christian ministry inside hospitals.”
“According to this guidance, a chaplain praying with parents mourning the loss of a child and then reading the famous words of Psalm 23 – The Lord is my shepherd – could fall foul of the law,” he said. “Indeed, it seems someone simply carrying a Bible through certain parts of a hospital could face a criminal investigation if someone thinks it could potentially influence a wholly unrelated abortion decision.”
Kelly said that while he believes this was not the lawmakers’ intention when drafting the law, its vague wording has created a “very damaging chilling effect.”
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“Patients do not lose the right to spiritual care because they happen to be in a hospital where abortions are also provided,” he continued. “The very suggestion that consensual prayer or Bible reading could ever become a criminal matter should concern everyone who values basic freedom.”
Johnston’s case follows several other high-profile incidents involving Christians who have been prosecuted under buffer zone laws in the U.K., drawing scrutiny from the U.S. State Department.
“The United States is still monitoring many ‘buffer zone’ cases in the U.K., as well as other acts of censorship throughout Europe,” a State Department spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital. “The U.K.’s persecution of silent prayer represents not only an egregious violation of the fundamental right to free speech and religious liberty, but also a concerning departure from the shared values that ought to underpin U.S.-U.K. relations.”
