Just a month after a woman was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic, police in the U.K. have fined army veteran Adam Smith-Connor for the same “crime,” this time near a clinic in Bournemouth. 

Authorities informed Smith-Connor that praying was a violation of a public order prohibiting acts of “approval” or “disapproval,” including silent prayer, near a “protected space.”  

When asked if he was praying, Smith-Connor explained, 

22 years ago I drove my ex-girlfriend to a facility and paid for her to have an abortion. … The consequences of my actions that day came back to grieve me years later, when I realized I had lost my son Jacob to an abortion I had paid for. Recently, I stood outside a similar facility and prayed to God for my son Jacob, for other babies who have lost their lives to abortion, for their grieving families, and for abortion clinic staff. 

No law will change what abortion really is, nor can it negate the harm it causes.