Abortion Buffer Zones And The Deception of Celebrimbor
"Celebrimbor"—the name has been haunting me all week.
There are several possible explanations for why the name of an Elven ringsmith keeps intruding, unannounced, into my consciousness. Firstly, this could be because seven days ago, I lost my wife’s engagement ring. I’ll spare you the exact details of how this happened, but as my search efforts expanded into more and more unrealistic places—like inside the microwave or down the drain in my lodger's shower—I kept remembering his name: Celebrimbor.
Secondly, it’s no doubt because my wife and I recently finished the final episode of the wokified visual "spec-tacky-la" Rings of Power Season 2—or, as we’ve taken to calling it Rings of Rubbish. For all the nonsense in the series—and my gosh, there was a lot of it—I can’t seem to etch this particular character out of my memory.
Thirdly, and most pertinent, is that on the 31st of this month, 150-metre-wide censorship zones will be introduced around all English and Welsh clinics and NHS facilities that perform abortions. According to the Public Order Act 2023, these zones (or rings) will prohibit any act that seeks to influence a “person’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services.” Similar zones already exist in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and around six UK clinics. While the national legislation doesn’t specifically prohibit prayer, Scottish guidance includes "religious preaching" and "silent vigils" in this category. The fact that these zones have been used to arrest people for praying—like Isabel Vaughan Spruce (later cleared), Clair Brennan, and myself—suggests this is very much the direction we’re heading in. Just last week, Adam Smith was found guilty of praying audibly in one of these zones in Bournemouth and was made to pay a £1,000 fine plus £8,000 in legal fees. If our fears are realised, it will soon be illegal to pray within 26 square kilometers of British land,¹ centered around locations where babies are not merely being killed, but sacrificed to the gods of fear, convenience, career progression, or raw power.
And to think this ban is being brought in on Halloween, the biggest day in the devil's calendar, simultaneously to an orgy of consumer purchases of plastic skulls, fake blood, and pointy ears—it’s hardly a coincidence.
Which brings me back to Celebrimbor. Lodged among all the silly stuff—women felling men like dandelions, unexplained racial mixing, incestuous kisses, orc doting, and yet more fake ears (High King Gil-galad’s were particularly unconvincing)—is a performance worth noting. I am referring to that of Charles Edwards, the British actor born in 1967 (the same year abortion was legalized), who plays Lord Celebrimbor, ruler of Eregion.
I would issue a spoiler, but there is so little to spoil I won’t. What you need to know is that this Elven ringsmith is deceived by Sauron into creating rings: seven for the dwarves and nine for the men, by which Sauron can conquer Middle-earth. Put simply, Sauron (the personification of evil) doesn’t have Celebrimbor’s skill, so he co-opts goodness through deception, manipulation, and witchcraft into doing his will. As an opposing orc army lays siege to the city where this is happening, Sauron concocts a rose-tinted matrix in which the now tunnel-visioned Celebrimbor continues working. Barbarity is replaced with beauty, urgency with timelessness.
In a similar way, the UK has been deceived into forging 375 rings of power outside our abortion clinics. Through the redefinition of harm from physical damage to psychological disapproval, fabricated evidence, and a lengthy media campaign, misguided councils, politicians, and even Christians have come to believe sustained harassment is occurring outside these clinics—not enough to break the law (which already criminalises such behavior), but enough to justify new laws against activities that are currently legal but, apparently, shouldn’t be in certain places. None of this makes sense, nor should it, because idolatry is involved.
In their grandiose desire to protect “women’s rights” or ensure “access to healthcare,” most overlook the true barbarity of what is going on. The comparison to Celebrimbor couldn’t be clearer than on Mattock Lane in Ealing, West London—one of the six UK clinics which already has Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) that prevent any form of approval or disapproval of abortion, including “prayer.” Right next to the clinic is a beautiful Victorian park, complete with a pond and an art gallery. While dog walkers stroll, mums push buggies, and squirrels bury nuts, the repurposed nunnery next door oversees the poisoning, decapitation, dismemberment, and disposal of thousands of babies—8,729 in 2021 to be exact, 254 of them between 20 and 23 weeks. Eyewitnesses I know, brave enough to stand or pray near the clinic, report vans coming to collect the body parts and ferry them off to locations unknown. Like Celebrimbor, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers (and some believers) so they see health where, in reality, all there is only death.
Fortunately—and painfully—Celebrimbor wakes up. The reckoning comes in the final episodes, when he opens his window and is suddenly confronted not only by a city in flames but by his own soot-covered face. In shock and horror, he realises that the mithril he’s been using for the rings is, in fact, Sauron’s blood—yuck. It’s too late for him and his city, but at least he gets to take the moral high ground before the end—quite literally, as Sauron impales his body ten feet high against a pillar. These zones are coming, just like the rings—they’ve already been forged. But if my experience in recent weeks speaking at evangelical churches—including my own after two years of waiting—teaches me anything, it’s that more and more people, just as Celebrimbor did, are waking up and shaking off their employment in deception.
My engagement ring is still lost, but what does that matter if God’s people rediscover the need to shine like stars in a crooked and depraved generation as they hold out the word of life?