Abortion protests: is free speech in retreat?

The conviction of 64-year-old Livia Tossici-Bolt for breaching abortion clinic 'buffer zone' has made her the unlikely focus of a transatlantic row over free speech

Pro-life marchers carrying a banner saying 'Abortion isn't healthcare, healthcare doesn't kill' down Whitehall during an anti-abortion protest in London in September 2024
Pro-life marchers walk down Whitehall during an anti-abortion protest in London in September 2024
(Image credit: Guy Smallman / Getty Images)

"Hair in a grey bob with a small gold cross around her neck, 64-year-old Livia Tossici-Bolt might seem an unlikely choice of a global cause célèbre," said Nicholas Pyke in the Daily Mail. But the activist has become the face of a transatlantic row over free speech after being convicted for breaching an abortion clinic "buffer zone" in 2023. Tossici-Bolt, who stood outside the Bournemouth clinic with a sign saying, "Here to talk, if you want", has been given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,000 in costs.

The Trump administration called it disappointing. And they're right, said Melanie McDonagh in The Spectator. Tossici-Bolt wasn't aggressive; all she did was respectfully offer an "alternative" opinion on abortion, as anyone in a free country is allowed to do. Not here in Britain, though. I saw footage of a community support officer asking another respectful protester, outside a Birmingham clinic, whether she was praying. That was the point at which I thought: the country is "going to hell".

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It's true: deciding to abort a child is painful enough without being "harassed by a stranger", said the Daily Mail. Still, weighing up such protections against free speech is a "fine balance" – and it's not clear the UK has got it right. There was already a "climate of censorship" here, what with cancel culture, no-platforming and the "vigilantism" of trans-rights activists. Now we've convicted someone for holding a non-confrontational sign. Whatever one's views of abortion, shouldn't the idea of making a "polite 64-year-old woman" pay £20,000 for trying to strike up a consensual conversation "make us all feel a little queasy"?

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