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
Pope gives personal backing to Europe wide anti-abortion push
Posted: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 12:28
The Pope has given his personal support to a campaign being run by right-wing Catholics to have abortion "defunded" throughout the European Union.
The Pope said, "I salute the Movement for Life. I wish them success with the initiative called One of Us, so thatEuropeis always a place where the dignity of each human being is protected."
Launched last month by anti-abortion activists in 20 EU nations, the "One of Us" campaign is seeking to gather one million signatures from EU citizens by November 1, 2013 in order to force the European Parliament to schedule debate on the matter.
The proposal calls for a ban on the EU's "financing of activities which presuppose the destruction of human embryos, in particular in the areas of research, development aid and public health."
Speaking with Rome Reports, Gregor Puppinck the Director of the fundamentalist Catholic organisationEuropeanCenter for Law and Justice, explained, "In the U.S. there are a number of campaigns in order to de-fund Planned Parenthood. We are in some extent trying to do the same, we ask the EU to stop funding Planned Parenthood and similar organizations."
Experts say “drop the religious opt-out” for pharmacists
Posted: Fri, 1 Feb 2013 06:36
"Conscience clauses" that permit religious pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception or the "morning after" pill are unsatisfactory and should be dropped, say experts.
Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, academics from the University of Hertfordshire and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said that in the UK pharmacists have been able to give women the morning after pill without prescription since 2001 (2011 in the Republic of Ireland).
But there have been a growing number of cases of women being refused the medication — even when prescribed by a doctor — on the grounds of the pharmacists supposed religious conscience.
These refusals to supply are permitted under the codes of conduct of the pharmaceutical regulatory bodies – so long as the pharmacist refers the patient to someone else who is prepared to fulfil the prescription or dispense the contraception.
The authors of the article say that the status quo is "not satisfactory" to either conscientious objectors or to those who must regulate them.
They said that pharmacists who objected to supplying the pill "have allowed themselves to be convinced that referral to another willing supplier is ethically any different from supply" and that regulators have created a "pass the buck system".
The article goes on:
"Either the General Pharmaceutical Council's and Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland must compel all pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception to all patients meeting the clinical criteria who request it regardless of their own moral or religious objections, or the pharmacist must refuse both to supply EHC and to refer the patient to an alternative supplier and confront the possible consequence of a complaint against them for poor professional performance or professional misconduct.
"The alternative is to remain locked in the current cycles of mutual cognitive dissonance wherein the objectors convince themselves that referral does not constitute supply and the regulators do not place themselves in the position of having to deal with a vocal religious minority of whom they are terrified.
"As it stands, neither side wants the high-hanging grapes as they will be sour anyway."
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "We have approached the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) to try to get them to reconsider this disgraceful opt-out, but there seems little inclination on their part to move. Every time a woman faces the humiliating trial of being refused contraception in a chemists shop we try again, but we fear the GPhC may be afraid of the religious controversy that would inevitably follow if pharmacists were compelled to do their job in its entirety."
