If we force midwives to assist an abortion against their conscience we are no better than the Taliban.

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You shouldn’t be forced to reject a deep-felt belief (Photo: Alamy)

Two midwives have been forced to assist in abortion procedures, despite their pleading that this went against their religious beliefs.

The two women – both midwifery sisters at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow – claim the experience traumatised them and are taking the health authority to court, claiming that it had ignored their conscientious objections and thus infringed Article 9 of the European Law of Human Rights.

This case could set an important precedent: if a boss can overrule an employee’s conscientious objections, Catholic (and those of some other denominations and faiths) doctors, nurses and midwives would have to leave their profession. They would otherwise be forced to assist with suicide, or carry out terminations. They would have to pay lip service to a health authority that views a foetus’s disability as grounds for abortion.

Beyond the health sector, the  believer would have to swallow their convictions regarding gay marriages in church; or – as has already taken place – regarding gay adoption. To do otherwise would put their jobs on the line. In other words, millions of faithful Christians Muslims and Jews would have to choose between earning a living and their deep-felt belief. This seems extraordinary, especially given the outrage so many Britons express about the restrictions on religious freedom that Islamist extremists are putting in place all over the Middle East.

Freedom of conscience is not just for export. If we force midwives to assist a termination against their conscience, we cannot wag our finger at the Iranians who want to execute a Muslim for converting to Christianity.

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6 Responses to If we force midwives to assist an abortion against their conscience we are no better than the Taliban.

  1. toadspittle says:

    .
    “(The two nurses) were not expected to administer abortion-inducing drugs but management said requiring conscientious objectors to provide care for patients through a termination was lawful. “

    What does, “.. to provide care for patients through a termination” mean? This seems to be the issue here.

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  2. ‘In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.’ Gaudium et Spes

    A society which fails to enshrine liberty of the individual conscience in its constitution and practice is hardly civilized.

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  3. toadspittle says:

    .
    Not much interest in this piece, it seems.

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  4. JabbaPapa says:

    So it seems that companies that provide these killings will be allowed to advertise them on TV in the UK :

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9029447/Private-clinics-allowed-to-advertise-abortions-on-television.html

    So here we are then, murder has finally been accepted as just another commercial product …

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  5. The Raven says:

    Jabba, just another reason to throw out the TV.

    I am afraid that the cleric who called the UK the centre of the culture of death was entirely correct. Our TV will soon be occupied solely with adverts for abortionists, euthenasiacs and providers of pseudo marriages for sodomites (the last phrase may or may not have been written exclusively with a view to giving Toad palpitations 😉 ).

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  6. toadspittle says:

    .

    “Our TV will soon be occupied solely with adverts for abortionists, euthenasiacs and providers of pseudo marriages for sodomites “

    Raven’s fears are misplaced, Toad can assure him. When he first went to live in the U.S., all he watched on TV was American football. From this, he derived the impression that only beer and motor cars were ever advertised there.
    It is still the case in The Land of Newt, he is sure.

    Nor is Toad given to excessive palpitations.
    (In fact, the provision of pseudo marriages for sodomites sounds a very promising avenue to congenial and lucrative employment.
    Considerably less dispiriting than working for Hello! Magazine, playing the piano in a bordello, or being a Catholic bishop in the U.K. right now.
    If Toad were still a young man…)

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