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
Catholic Church fails to stop Philippines contraception bill
Posted: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:34
The Philippine parliament approved legislation on Monday that permits government funding for contraception and for sex education classes in schools.
The legislation was passed despite ferocious opposition from the Catholic Church, which exerts a domineering power bloc in the country.
The legislation has been on the cards for over a decade, but progress has been thwarted so far by the Church. Now the Senate and the House of Representatives passed different versions of the bill which will have to be reconciled before President Benigno Aquino III has an opportunity to sign it.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, one of the leading advocates of the bill said: "The Catholic church has steadfastly opposed the (reproductive health) bill for 13 years. But I humbly submit this afternoon that there is no force more powerful than an idea whose time has come."
Aquino, who certified the bill as urgent, considers it a major step toward reducing maternal deaths and promoting family planning in the impoverished country, which has one ofAsia's fastest-growing populations. In its usual hyperbolic style, the Church predicted all kinds of moral catastrophe if the bill was passed.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, vice president of thePhilippines' Bishops Conference, said that "the wide and free accessibility of contraceptives will result in the destruction of family life. Money for contraceptives can be better used for education and authentic health care," he said, adding that "those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves."
The Catholic bishops have a long history in interfering in and controlling the politics of the Philippines. They mobilised popular support for the 1986 "people power" revolt that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the 2001 overthrow of another president, Joseph Estrada.
An independent survey in June last year found that 68% of respondents agreed that the government should fund all means of family planning. An October survey of 600 teenagers in Manila, the capital, also carried out by Social Weather Stations, an independent opinion-polling institute, found that 87% believed the government should provide reproductive health services to the poor.
The United Nations said early this year that the bill would help reduce an alarming number of pregnancy-related deaths, prevent life-threatening abortions and slow the spread of AIDS.
The U.N. Population Fund says 3.4 million pregnancies occur in the Philippines every year. Half are unintended and a third are aborted, often in clandestine, unsafe and unsanitary procedures. The fund says 11 women in the country die of pregnancy-related causes every day. Nearly 70 percent of women use no contraception at all.
Reproductive health programmes are patchy and often unavailable to the poor. Some local governments have passed ordinances banning the sale of condoms and their distribution in health clinics.
"Many Filipino women have faced difficulties and sometimes death because of the absence of a comprehensive and consistent reproductive health policy. This law can change that," said Carlos Conde,Asiaresearcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, who opposes the bill, said pro-church groups were considering asking the Supreme Court to declare the bill unconstitutional. "You cannot legislate anything that is contrary to one's faith," he told reporters.
NSS call on EU Presidents to protect women's right to life
Posted: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:59
The Presidents of the European Council and European Commission today heard a plea for greater protection for pregnant women's right to life following the death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland. Mrs Halappanavar died in October after suffering a miscarriage after reportedly being denied a termination.
The call was made by the National Secular Society during the annual EU Presidents meeting with European philosophical and non-confessional organizations at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, 27th November. The meeting was hosted by José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission and attended by European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy (both pictured right).
In his intervention, Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, told representatives of the European Union that both the woman's death and Ireland's denial of women's human rights were a scandal. Mr Wood called on the EU Presidents to apply pressure on Ireland to change this law which appears to breach "the right to life" enshrined in Article 2 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
He said he was also seeking more help from the EU to protect the human rights of all citizens who are denied them by the application of religious dogma in the provision of public services.
The theme of the meeting was 'Intergenerational Solidarity: Setting the parameters for Tomorrow's Society in Europe'. The meeting was also attended by NSS vice president Elizabeth O'Casey.
Mr Wood pointed out that policies made by national and EU bodies almost always reflect the perspectives of politicians and advisers, rather than those of the young – which are often markedly different. He said every EU institution needs to try harder to capture the hearts and minds of the young in order to arrest their growing alienation from politics.
He said: "One of the most striking features of the difference in attitudes between the older and the younger in much of Europe is in their attitude to religion — and arguably even more importantly — to sensitive social issues. On these, younger citizens tend to be very much more liberal than their elders."
Read the speech in full (PDF)
