Carrying a Bible in Northern Ireland hospitals could be a crime under abortion buffer zone laws

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.Reading the Bible at the request of a patient or family within an abortion protected zone could risk a chaplain being found in violation of Northern Ireland's Safe Access Zones Act.(iStock via Getty Images)US MONITORING ‘CONCERNING’ UK PROSECUTION OF RETIRED PASTOR WHO PREACHED JOHN 3:16 NEAR HOSPITALThe 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.BIBLE VERSE LEADS TO TRIAL IN EUROPE.

GROWING CRACKDOWN THREATENS OUR US-UK VALUES"Describing conduct as pastoral, prayerful or religious in nature does no...