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 asks regulator to investigate pharmacist’s contraception refusal
Posted: Tue, 25 Jun 2019 13:38
The National Secular Society has asked a medical regulator to investigate an incident in which a pharmacist reportedly refused to serve a woman contraception for "personal reasons".
The NSS has written to the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPC) after a woman was refused the morning after pill at a branch of Lloyds Pharmacy in Brighton.
According to reports the woman pre-ordered and paid for the pill before arriving at the pharmacy, where she was told dispensing the pill would go against the pharmacist's "personal beliefs".
The pharmacist did not elaborate on her reasons and was the only member of staff on duty at the time. She told the patient, who has been named only as Siani, that she should come back the following day or travel to the nearest open pharmacy, which was 10 miles away.
Most local chemists were closed because it was a Sunday.
In his letter NSS chief executive Stephen Evans asked the GPC to "investigate this incident with a view to ensuring that service users are able to obtain medicine in a timely manner and without hindrance".
He added that patients should "not face the humiliating experience of being refused contraception on the basis of pharmacists' personal beliefs".
He also highlighted relevant GPC guidance, which places the onus of responsibility on pharmacies and pharmacy owners to ensure personal beliefs do not restrict patient access.
The guidance says pharmacy professionals who are unwilling to provide services should "take steps to make sure the person asking for care is at the centre of their decision-making, so they can access the service they need in a timely manner and without hindrance".
It also says pharmacists should "recognise their own values and beliefs but not impose them on other people" and "take responsibility for ensuring that person-centred care is not compromised because of personal values and beliefs".
Explaining his decision to write the letter, Mr Evans said medical professionals "should be expected to put the medical needs of the person before them ahead of their own personal opinions".
"We're concerned that on this occasion the pharmacist in question failed to ensure that person-centred care was not compromised. The General Pharmaceutical Council should take steps to ensure its own helpful guidance is upheld in practice and this incident doesn't set a damaging precedent.
"Asking women to travel for miles or come back on another occasion places an unreasonable imposition on, and creates a stigma towards, people who are simply seeking necessary medicine. And allowing personal beliefs to be used as a reason to deny treatment may also endanger patients' health, particularly if those affected are vulnerable."
In comments to the Metro newspaper last week, Siani said: "I can handle this. I'm not embarrassed. I'm old and stroppy enough to make a fuss, but what if I was a teenager?"
Lloyds Pharmacy has apologised to her since the incident.
In recent years religious lobbying groups have argued for 'conscientious objection' clauses which would allow medical staff to refuse to provide certain services for religious reasons.
Last year a bill tabled in the Lords aimed to extend medical practitioners' rights to refuse to carry out their duties on religious grounds. The bill's opponents included NSS honorary associate and Labour peer Glenys Thornton.
That bill was tabled in response to a Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that two nurses did not have the right not to "delegate, supervise and support" staff involved in abortions.
Image: © HRA Pharma, via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0] (cropped)
Contraceptive guideline partly designed to please pope is dropped
Posted: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 16:46
A long-standing clause which was partly designed to meet with the pope's approval has been dropped from official guidelines on the contraceptive pill.
Updated guidance from the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) has said taking a seven-day break from the pill does not bring health benefits. The FSRH sets national guidance for the safe prescription of contraceptives.
Part of the reason the break was initially recommended was that Catholic gynaecologist John Rock hoped it would mean the pope would accept the pill's use. Rock played a major role in developing the pill before it received approval from the US government.
Subsequent popes have not accepted the use of the pill except in extraordinary circumstances, but the seven-day break has been recommended since.
During the monthly break women have tended to bleed, while some have endured symptoms such as period pains, headaches and mood changes. Experts have also said the break can create an increased risk of unwanted pregnancy if a woman is late restarting her course of pills.
At the time the break was first recommended the pill was much stronger than it is now, meaning there were also believed to be medical justifications for the break.
The new guidance says women can safely take fewer or no breaks to avoid monthly bleeds, cramps and other symptoms. It also says shortening breaks to four days could reduce the risk of pregnancy.
The advice has been accredited by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides clinical guidance for healthcare professionals. Some doctors already advise patients against taking a break.
Family planning expert Professor John Guillebaud told The Telegraph that John Rock thought "the pope would accept" the pill if it imitated "the natural cycle".
A National Secular Society spokesperson said: "Contraceptives should be prescribed solely on the basis of what is best for the patients receiving them. Healthcare professionals' advice to patients should not be influenced by religious dogma, particularly when they have no idea whether those patients subscribe to the religion in question.
"This is a reminder of the need to separate religion from the surgery."
When releasing its latest guidance the FSRH said some women could safely take the pill for 28 days – although it warned that this would not suit everyone.
Dr Sarah Hardman, co-director of the FSRH's Clinical Effectiveness Unit, said: "We are all different: there isn't any one method of contraception that is the 'best' method for every woman, so it's really important that women have choice."
