In a move that the U.S. State Department called “tyrannical,” a 75-year-old anti-abortion grandmother, Rose Docherty, once again found herself in handcuffs in Scotland—not for a crime of violence, but for holding a sign.
Docherty was arrested over the weekend outside Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, allegedly for violating Scotland’s sweeping “buffer zone” law, which criminalizes not only harassment or intimidation around abortion clinics, but even the vague notion of “influencing.”
In response to the arrest, the State Department issued a statement to the Telegraph, saying:
The arrest of Rose Docherty is another egregious example of the tyrannical suppression of free speech happening across Europe. When 75-year-old grandmothers are being arrested for standing peacefully and offering conversation, common sense and basic civility are under attack. The United States will always speak out against these violations of fundamental rights.
Her message on the sign read, “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” No confrontation, no mention of abortion, just a placard offering consensual conversation.
🚨BREAKING🚨
75-year-old Rose Docherty has been arrested AGAIN
for holding a sign reading “coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want” within a Scottish “buffer zone”
Rose was kept in a cell for two hours, and refused a chair, despite having a double hip replacement. pic.twitter.com/HizSihMvU3
— ADF International (@ADFIntl) September 27, 2025
The law forbids any such action within 200 meters of every hospital in Scotland.
This isn’t Docherty’s first run-in with the law. She was previously arrested in August for holding the same sign in the same spot. That case was quietly dropped after global outrage and a direct rebuke from the State Department.
Docherty has had two hip replacements. After her most recent arrest, she was reportedly denied a chair for several hours while in custody. Her bail conditions now prevent her from returning not only to the buffer zone, but also to an area even larger than the restricted zone—an expansion her legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom International calls “disproportionate.”
Legal counsel Lorcan Price hit the nail on the head: “This is not a case about harassment or intimidation… This is simply a grandmother, who held a sign offering to speak to anyone who would like to engage.”
Scotland’s government, led by those determined to muzzle dissent, seems committed to pushing the narrative that a peaceful granny is somehow a public threat.
In a now-infamous moment, Scottish Member of Parliament Gillian Mackay, architect of the law, even admitted that someone could potentially be criminalized for praying inside their home if visible from the street, “depending on who’s passing by the window.”
Docherty summed it up: “Conversation is not forbidden on the streets of Glasgow. And yet, this is the second time I have been arrested for doing just that.”
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