Many of us have heard the tune “Scotland the Brave.” It is the kind of tune, as Irving Berlin said of another song, that is “so natural that you want to go to war.” Alas, in recent years, Scotland, like virtually every other Western country, including the United States, has not been brave when it comes to free speech. In many ways, free speech has made cowards of us all, the first rotten pillar in a wider cultural collapse.
It is heartening that this week, in Scotland, Sheriff Stuart Reid dismissed criminal charges against 75-year-old pro-life activist Rose Docherty. It seems the dastardly grandmother had committed the crime of free speech. In front of Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, Glasgow, she held a sign that read, “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.”
That silent sign spoke volumes to guilty consciences in the parliament at Holyrood. Prosecutors said it violated Scotland’s 200-meter buffer zone legislation.
Many years ago, a film titled The Silent Scream was made in the United States. To his credit, CNN founder Ted Turner agreed to air this documentary to a national audience. It was made by the former leader of the abortion movement in the United States, Dr. Bernard Nathanson. It convinced a number of abortionists to stop doing abortions. Nathanson had done over 50,000 abortions and eventually was baptized at St. Patrick’s by John Cardinal O’Connor. Nathanson devoted the rest of his life to speaking for those who had been silenced by abortion.
Today, the silencing of free speech mirrors the silencing of the preborn, those millions who will never be free to speak their own names.
The court’s ruling said prosecutors did not prove Docherty violated Scotland’s 2024 buffer zone law. The ruling was weak, however. It focused on the fact that prosecutors had no evidence anyone was influenced by the sign and “failed to disclose an offense known to the law of Scotland.” In what fun-house-mirror snow-flake world is influencing someone else to love their own child a crime?
Dismissed “pro loco et tempore,” the window is still open for further prosecution. Docherty said the prosecution was “a form of punishment for me.” The chill on free speech remains.
Lorcán Price, Alliance Defending Freedom International Legal Counsel, said, “No one should fear arrest for offering a consensual conversation. Rose’s case is a stark example of how ‘buffer zone’ laws can be weaponized to silence peaceful expression.” These laws do not only exist in Scotland. They exist at an abortion mill near you.
“I was arrested, charged, and prosecuted”, Docherty said, “for nothing more than peacefully inviting consensual conversation in a public space that I was permitted to be in. When I was arrested, I was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police van, and placed in a police cell for over two hours, without a chair to sit on. Simply for being available for the lonely, the afraid, and the coerced, I have been treated like a violent criminal. But thankfully, today, the charges have been dismissed. I don’t believe I was violating the law, because I consider this law to be unjust. I was merely standing with a sign that communicated a fact—coercion is a crime.”
Related: Kansas Republicans Defy Pro-Abortion Governor, Protect Pro-Life Centers
President John F. Kennedy said, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
Whether it is the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, or in Westminster, Washington, or your local state capital, the war on free speech by the culture of death is a multi-front attack. This means that for a free people, there is no discharge in the war.
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