Abortion buffer zones at centre of free-speech row with US

The US State Department has warned the UK over its criminalisation of free speech in abortion buffer zones, in a highly unusual move.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, & Labour (DRL) posted an official statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) this week criticising the UK government in response to its handling of the case of anti-abortion campaigner Livia Tossici-Bolt.

Tossici-Bolt, a retired medical scientist, was arrested last year and charged with infringing a public spaces protection order in an abortion buffer zone in Bournemouth, for holding up a sign which said, ‘Here to talk if you want’.

She refused to pay a fixed penalty notice, and claims that she has a legal right, under the Human Rights Act, to offer consensual conversations. She has pleaded ‘not guilty’ at Poole Magistrates’ Court.

The statement read: “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, as Vice-President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.

“While recently in the UK, DRL senior adviser Sam Samson met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, who faces criminal charges for offering conversation within a legally prohibited ‘buffer zone’ at an abortion clinic.

“We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”

The statement follows highly-publicised claims earlier this year from Vice President JD Vance that ‘free speech is in retreat’ in the UK.

Coming in a week where the headlines have been dominated by talk of tariffs from the Trump administration, the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was forced to deny that the case had played any part in negotiatons:

“No, I can say as someone who is very closely part of the issues that are currently being discussed, obviously there are things from different people in the administration that they’ve said in the past about this, but it’s not been part of the trade negotiations that I’ve been part of.

“We have a strong and proud tradition of free speech. I think we can say we can defend that and be proud of the UK’s record and history in this area.”

The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch also responded to the statement, saying that she believed that the abortion buffer-zone policy was “too onerous”, but that the law had been brought in “democratically” in a free vote.

She also warned that she would not be supportive of a wider debate around abortion in the UK, and claimed that the UK-abortion law struck “the right balance”:

“Some of the things that the US state department is commenting on is actually more commentary rather than reality. One of the things I do not want to see is us bringing the abortion laws that the US has to our country. We never had this before — we don’t need that. The state department should recognise that this is a free country that has liberal values.”