'Nobody should be criminalized for their prayers, their mere thoughts,' said Adam Smith-Connor, who was prosecuted for violating a bubble-zone law.
(LifeSiteNews) -- The British man who U.S. Vice President JD Vance mentioned in an address to European elites Friday in Germany thanked him for referencing his 2022 arrest.
On Saturday morning, Adam Smith-Connor released a 53-second video calling out the hypocrisy of “UK authorities” while heaping praise on Vance for bringing what he called his “crazy” story to the attention of the world.
“I just want to say thank you to Vice President Vance for raising my plight in front of world leaders. Nobody should be criminalized for their prayers, their mere thoughts,” Smith-Connor began.
“My case has exposed the UK authorities in front of the world as they allow thought police to prosecute peaceful, innocent people, for what’s going on in their minds.”
“I will be appealing my conviction in July and pray that justice will be restored to Great Britain. Silent prayers are not a crime. Not here, not anywhere,” he concluded.
Smith-Connor’s arrest was reported on by LifeSite’s Dorothy Cummings McLean when it first occurred. At the time, he had been taken away for violating a controversial “bubble zone” law that prohibits persons from standing within 200 meters of an abortion facility. Smith-Connor noted Friday on X that he was standing outside in silence “because I was praying for my son who died in an abortion.”
An army veteran, Smith-Connor was given a two-year probation sentence and ordered to pay £9,000 ($11,700) for violating the law. Before going to trial in 2024, he publicly commented that his arrest was a symbol of a nation in decline.
“It is unfathomable that in an apparently free society, I am being criminally charged on the basis of my silent thoughts,” he said.
Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom International is helping Smith-Connor with his appeal.
Smith-Connor is not the only Brit to be persecuted for silently praying outside an abortion clinic. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, co-director of the March for Life UK and campaign director for 40 Days for Life Birmingham, was arrested for doing the same thing. She has repeatedly been fined, harassed, and wrongly arrested by police on multiple occasions since 2022.
In March 2023, the U.K. Parliament expanded local “buffer zone” laws around some abortion facilities to cover every abortion facility in England and Wales effective October 2024.
