We've defended reproductive rights from religiously motivated restrictions since our founding.
Religion should not stand in the way of reproductive healthcare.
A desire to restrict reproductive rights, and to control women's bodies, is a hallmark of religious fundamentalism. We strongly support the right of women to have legal and safe abortions and access to emergency contraception.
Since its founding the National Secular Society has supported reproductive rights. In 1878 our founder and vice-president were prosecuted for making information about birth control accessible to working class women.
Throughout the world, reproductive rights are still under threat from theocrats. While individual religious people hold diverse views on abortion, every stage of progress in reproductive healthcare has been fought by religious organisations. Often these have involved virulent campaigns of intimidation and misinformation.
84% of people in the UK believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. This includes 76% of religious people and 94% of nonreligious people.
In the UK, emergency contraception can still sometimes be difficult to obtain. Some religious pharmacists have defied General Pharmaceutical Council guidance by refusing to sell it or even to dispense a prescription given to a woman after a consultation with her own doctor.
People of all religions and beliefs can have disagreements on the boundaries of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. However, religious beliefs should not be used to restrict the bodily autonomy of other people.
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Latest updates
NSS welcomes Supreme Court ruling on abortion objection case
Posted: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:05
The Supreme Court has overturned a ruling on the case of two Catholic midwives, upholding an appeal from the Greater Glasgow Health Board. The nurses had claimed the right not to "delegate, supervise and support" staff who were involved in abortions.
The court ruling has been welcomed by the National Secular Society, which said the ruling clarified the limits of conscientious objection in abortion treatment.
Despite neither nurse being directly involved in abortion procedures, Mary Doogan and Concepta Wood claimed that "being forced to supervise Glasgow health board staff taking part in abortions violated their human rights."
The Supreme Court has now ruled unanimously that the two nurses were not "participating" in abortions and were therefore not protected by the Abortion Act 1967's provision for "conscientious objection."
The two nurses argued that they "hold a religious belief that all human life is sacred from the moment of conception and that termination of pregnancy is a grave offence against human life."
After an extended legal battle the two nurses eventually won the right not to supervise staff who were involved in abortions, or who were providing care to patients undergoing termination of their pregnancy.
This was despite an initial ruling in which the Court of Session ruled that "nothing they [the nurses] have to do as part of their duties terminates a woman's pregnancy. They are sufficiently removed from direct involved as, it seems to me, to afford appropriate respect for and accommodation of their beliefs."
The two nurses have since pursued an extended legal battle to win a right to conscientiously object to having to "delegate, supervise and support" staff who were involved in abortion procedures. They won an appeal in April 2013 which found that "the right of conscientious objection extends not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose." Following that ruling, Greater Glasgow Health Board were urged by the National Secular Society to appeal to decision.
National Secular Society executive director, Keith Porteous Wood, said, "This vital ruling clarifies the limits of conscientious objection in abortion treatment. Had the case gone the other way it might have opened the way for the broadening of conscience clauses in many other areas of life - much to the detriment of those who don't share the religious or ethical views of those exercising their conscience."
Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: "BPAS supports the right to refuse to work in abortion care, not least because women deserve better than being treated by those who object to their choice. But the law as it stands already provides healthcare workers with these protections."
"Extending this protection to tasks not directly related to the abortion would be the detriment of women needing to end a pregnancy and the healthcare staff committed to providing that care. There are enough barriers in the way of women who need an abortion without further obstacles being thrown in their way."
The full Supreme Court ruling is available here.
The press summary of the ruling can be found here.
Head of Polish hospital dismissed after refusing abortion on religious grounds
Posted: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 07:40
The head of a Polish public hospital has been dismissed for refusing on religious grounds to carry out an abortion on a woman whose unborn baby suffered from serious malformations.
An investigation found that Professor Bogdan Chazan, director of Warsaw's Holy Family Hospital, refused to perform or facilitate an abortion of a badly deformed foetus – citing a 'conscience clause' – but then declined to refer the woman to another hospital or physician.
The woman was eventually referred to another public hospital, but by that point she was five days past the legal 24-week abortion limit.
She carried the child to term, giving birth on June 30 only for the baby to die nine days later.
A report of the incident will be forwarded to the prosecutor's office, to determine whether a crime had occurred under Polish law.
Poland's strict abortion laws only grant women the right to an abortion before 25 weeks of pregnancy and if the mother's life is in grave danger, if the foetus is known to have severe birth defects, or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
The incident has reignited the long-running debate in Poland between conservatives and liberals over abortion, which along with homosexuality, contraception, and in vitro fertilization, is defined by the church as sinful.
Professor Chazan is reported to be one of 3,000 doctors and medical students who this year signed a "Declaration of Faith" affirming the Catholic church's teaching that all human life is sacred from the moment of conception.
The Roman Catholic Church given its full support Chazan.
Warsaw's Roman Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, said that the sacking of Chazan amounted to a "dangerous precedent that hurt the rights not only of the Catholics, but of all people."
Meanwhile, a new survey by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland has revealed that Poles are turning away from the Church. Just 39% of Poles attended Sunday mass in 2013, representing a fall of around 2 million compared to ten years ago.
Also see: Poland asks: should a doctor serve God, or patients?
