A Christian grandmother is going to the High Court Tuesday 23 January to clarify the law on her human rights and free speech, after she was convicted under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 for trying to "educate" pharmacists who dispensed the 'morning after pill' to "another point of view", the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship has told Christian Today.
In 2004, Veronica Connolly, a devout Roman Catholic, expressed her anger over the right of pharmacists to dispense the 'morning after pill' over the counter, but her actions led to three convictions.
As a Catholic, she believes an unborn baby is a child of God, and as such, abortion is a form of murder. She also believes that the 1967 Abortion Act should be repealed.
In 2004, an article in Catholic newspaper The Universe suggested readers should write to pharmacists who stock the 'morning after pill', voicing their concerns on the issue of abortion.
From 2004-5, Mrs Connolly wrote to pharmacists, attaching photographs of aborted foetuses to highlight her concerns, having first telephoned them to ensure they stocked the 'morning after pill', and, to seek their permission to send the photographs. If a pharmacists did not grant her permission to do this, she did not send the photographs, the LCF says.
On 10 February 2005, one pharmacist made a complaint and the police were called. On February 13, Mrs Connolly was taken to Solihull Police Station for questioning. She was then arrested without warning, and in the presence of her daughter and five-year-old granddaughter. She was held at the police station for approximately seven hours, and in that time she was provided with very insignificant facilities for a woman in a wheelchair. Mrs Connolly suffers from a condition known as Myalgic Enchymylitus, which means that she cannot stand for long periods and she has to use a wheelchair, explains the LCF.
Mrs Connolly was charged under the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Essentially, the Act states that if a communication is either 'indecent' or 'grossly offensive' and that one of the purposes of sending it is to cause 'distress' or 'anxiety', then an offence has been committed.
