The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its Abortion Care Guidance recently, ostensibly ‘in a bid to protect the health of women and girls and help prevent over 25 million unsafe abortions that currently occur each year’. The implication throughout the guidance is that unsafe […]
New parliamentary report on conscientious objection to abortion calls for widespread changes
A new parliamentary report has found that there is ‘widespread and increasing pressure’ on healthcare professionals to participate in abortions which is ‘in large part due to inadequate observance of the current legislation’. ‘Freedom of Conscience in Abortion Provision’, which was published on 21 July, is […]
Conscientious Objection and the worrying implications of the Glasgow midwives case
The right for health professionals to exercise their conscientious objection to participating in abortion – or indeed to choose on occasion to limit the areas in which they work in order not to be ethically compromised – has been under assault worldwide for some […]
Abortion and conscientious objection – My letter to the General Medical Council and their reply
On 21 June this year I wrote to Mr Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, to point out that in the light of a recent court judgement, their guidance on doctors’ involvement in abortion was now out of step with the law. […]
My letter to the General Medical Council over its guidance to doctors on conscientious objection to abortion
When two Glasgow midwives won the right to opt out of supervising abortions last April I suggested that the General Medical Council (GMC) needed to revise its professional guidance on the matter which now seemed to be at odds with the law. At the time […]