Thought Police: Protecting the People From Prayer

'In their zeal to defend abortion at all costs, governments are beginning to criminalise silent thought. Their efforts must be resisted.'

From The European Conservative

By Todd Huizinga

In their zeal to defend abortion at all costs, governments are beginning to criminalise silent thought. Their efforts must be resisted.

Since its earliest versions surfaced sometime in the Middle Ages, the venerable German folk song “Die Gedanken sind frei” (Thoughts are free) has been an anthem to a keystone of human dignity: freedom of thought. This song gives voice to the fact that, while oppressive authorities can forbid speech, assembly, worship, or anything else that happens outside the realm of a person’s consciousness, what goes on inside the brain cannot be stopped by anyone. In Germany, the song’s contemporary version took shape in the first half of the 19th century, expressing popular opposition to censorship and authoritarianism. Forbidden after the failed German revolution of 1848, it resurfaced in 1898 when the composer Gustav Mahler included it in his song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). In the 1930s and ’40s, the song played a role in the resistance against Nazism. In 1989, demonstrators sang it to express their demand for a peaceful transition to democracy in the German Democratic Republic.

In the Anglophone world, the song was popularised by the American protest and folk singer Pete Seeger in the 1950s and ’60s. Seeger’s version interweaves the original German phrase with lyrics in English that are reminiscent of the original text:

“Die Gedanken sind frei; my thoughts freely flower.
Die Gedanken sind frei; my thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them.
No hunter can trap them.
No man can deny—Die Gedanken sind frei.”

Over centuries and in numerous versions and several languages, “Die Gedanken sind frei” has proven irresistible because it flatly states a truth that is inspiring in its undeniability: thought is free; and no one can stop anyone else from thinking what he thinks. It eludes all outside powers. It is immune to law enforcement. No one can police thoughts. Even with today’s ubiquitous surveillance technology and its ability to reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, the term “thought police,” first popularized 80 years ago in George Orwell’s book 1984, has never been taken literally. It has always been a purposeful exaggeration meant to capture the essential totalitarianism behind politically correct attempts to silence unapproved opinion, language, or behaviour.

But now, in the wake of an amendment to the Public Order Act which mandates protest-free “buffer zones” around abortion clinics in England and Wales, we have witnessed several instances of government authorities literally attempting to police thought. And sadly, this has happened not in China, North Korea, or Iran, but in the UK, a supposed bastion of democracy and the rule of law. In the past two years or so, at least three people have been arrested for engaging in silent prayer, without saying a word out loud, in the vicinity of an abortion clinic. One of these people has been arrested twice for her ‘crime.’ Others have been harassed by police, but not arrested. So far, all of them have been vindicated, eventually declared innocent of having committed any crime. But the mere fact that police have been able to question anyone’s right to pray—not only aloud but silently—gives us more than just a taste of dystopia.

Of course, there is a defensible rationale for the law, one that many find compelling: a woman who is in a situation desperate enough to have decided to undergo an abortion is under great emotional strain. Her decision to terminate her pregnancy is a deeply private one. People standing outside the clinic who oppose abortion have an intimidating and threatening effect on vulnerable women, regardless of whether that is their intention. Even if all they are doing is praying silently, pro-lifers add to the great suffering of hurting women by their mere presence.

That rationale is understandable, even to pro-lifers and those concerned with freedom of speech and religion. Nevertheless, it is convincing only if one both skirts the question of the right to life of the unborn child, and elevates empathy for those choosing abortion above all other considerations.

But many people do both absolutize empathy, and avoid thinking about the right to life of innocent, voiceless babies in the womb. The dechristianization of the West has helped usher in a therapeutic age in which the two great goods at stake, namely truth and love, are no longer held in balance. Feelings trump truth, and empathy trumps all other considerations, including the unalienable rights and freedoms—such as those of speech and religion—that governments exist to secure. This state of affairs is perhaps the most chilling aspect of all: within the worldview held by a considerable number of people in the dechristianized West, it makes perfect sense to enforce a protest-free buffer zone around abortion clinics, in which people are not allowed silently to entertain so much as a single pro-life thought. The prohibition of silent prayer is not just a case of government abusing its power. It is also an example of government carrying out the will of a significant number of voters.

To be sure, the question of forbidding silent prayer has elicited plenty of controversy in the UK. The preliminary guidance on the law from Suella Braverman’s Home Office affirms that freedom of thought is a fundamental human right which the government is obliged to protect, and that freedom of thought includes the freedom to pray silently. But many politicians—on the Right as well as on the Left—oppose the draft guidance. They claim—quite plausibly—that it undercuts the clear intent of Parliament to protect women who choose to have an abortion from any and all interference or influence against that right. There are signs that the final version of the Home Office guidance will reverse course and include silent prayer among the actions that violate the law.

England and Wales are not alone in going to the very extreme to protect abortion. In Scotland, the parliament is considering a buffer zone law that is even more zealous than the English Public Order Act amendment. It, too, could well outlaw private thoughts, including silent prayer. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in the U.S., at least 20 pro-lifers have been convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The Biden Administration is adding a felony conspiracy charge as well, in order to justify draconian prison sentences. One woman, a grandmother and bookstore owner from Michigan, faces combined sentences totaling more than twenty years for having blocked the entrances to abortion clinics in a non-violent manner.

It is no coincidence that extreme measures such as the attempt to police thought have arisen in connection to abortion. The ferocity of government attempts to preclude any action against abortion, even the invisible and inaudible act of silent prayer, bears witness to how self-evident the evil of abortion is. Anything that even alludes to its obvious vileness must be immediately stamped out. If anyone could even begin to think about it, a truth that must be buried would be exposed, namely that the ‘right to choose’ means the right to kill an unborn child. One can call it a foetus if one likes, but it remains an undeniable fact that the foetus in question is genetically a human being. In its very silence, prayer to the Father of all goodness brings out the stark reality that abortion clinics exist for an unspeakable purpose: killing innocent human beings in the earliest stages of life.

The new totalitarianism reaches beyond the abortion question. Under the sway of the mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion, any type of religious expression could come under threat. Last October, the Canadian National Ministry of Defense directed military chaplains, out of a “commitment to diversity, inclusion, and the betterment of our chaplaincy program,” to avoid mentioning God or using religious language in public ceremonies on Remembrance Day, the annual commemoration of those who have died defending Canada. This resulted from an advisory panel report that suggested that traditional adherents of monotheistic religions are racist and homophobic. As organisations such as Aid to the Church in Need and the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) have documented, dechristianization and political correctness are threatening religious freedom throughout Western Europe and North America. It is time for us in the West to come to our senses. Let us draw on our rich Western heritage of democracy, freedom, human dignity, human rights—a heritage which is especially robust in the UK, a centuries-long model of democracy and the rule of law—and refuse to tolerate the incipient totalitarianism in our midst.