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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Christian groups coordinating anti-rights campaigns across Europe
Posted: Fri, 4 May 2018 11:55
A coordinated effort by ultra-conservative Christian groups to restrict LGBT+ and women's rights across Europe has already had some success, a report has revealed.
The report from the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF) outlines the strategy of a group called Agenda Europe, a Vatican-inspired professional advocacy network.
EPF cites recently revealed documents which show the group has "a detailed, extremist strategy called Restoring the Natural Order: an Agenda for Europe".
The strategy seeks to overturn existing human rights related to sexuality and reproduction, including: the right to divorce; women's rights to access contraception, assisted reproduction technologies or have abortions; equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or intersex people; and the right to change one's gender or sex without fear of legal repercussions.
EPF's report says the strategy "is producing concrete results". It cites bans on same-sex marriage in "several central European countries", "over a dozen comparable acts at national level and in European institutions aiming to limit women's and LGBTI rights" and a bill which attempted to ban abortion in Poland.
According to the report Agenda Europe has attracted over 100 anti-human rights, anti-women's rights and anti-LGBT+ organisations from over 30 European countries since 2013. Its members meet in secret.
Restoring the Natural Order says it is based on "a natural law, which human reason can discern and understand, but which human will cannot alter". It adds that "the task and purpose of all positive legislation" is "to transpose and enforce" this law.
It identifies three major areas for campaigners to target: "marriage and the family", "the right to life" and equality and anti-discrimination law. It also says they should "not be afraid to be 'unrealistic' or 'extremist' in choosing our policy objectives".
The group is aiming to ban same-sex marriage, divorce, gay adoption, the pharmaceutical sale of contraceptives, ante-natal diagnostics and IVF. It aims to introduce anti-sodomy legislation and bans on "gay propaganda" alongside international bans on abortion, stem cell use and euthanasia. And it is seeking the abolition of equality legislation.
It has also identified non-legislative actions including the revision of sex education classes, introducing government-funded 'pro-life' abortion counselling and supporting resolutions against surrogacy.
The strategy says campaigners should aim to "debunk the opponents' claim to 'victim status'", malign opponents and non-conducive institutions and build international networks.
It also says they should be prepared to frame their arguments in terms of rights. For example, it says proponents of "conscience clauses", which allow medical professionals to refuse to provide care on religious grounds, should argue that they be considered "a minimal human rights standard".
EPF says Agenda Europe is led by the Vatican but has "managed to forge consensus among all conservative, traditionalist Christian actors across Europe, spanning all denominations".
In the conclusion to its report EPF calls on "progressive actors" to "take heed that this fight is engaged and that social progress is not necessarily inevitable". It says the "next phases of this fight" are likely to be in the Austrian parliament, where Agenda Europe organiser Gudrun Kugler was elected in September 2017, and the European judicial and quasi-judicial adjudicatory mechanisms.
Agenda Europe's litigation infrastructure has expanded in Europe, with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an American Christian advocacy group, recently opening offices in Brussels, Geneva and Strasbourg.
Official report recommends amending abortion law in NI
Posted: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 15:56
The National Secular Society has welcomed an official report which has recommended allowing abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities in Northern Ireland.
A report published this week by a working group for Northern Ireland's Departments of Health and Justice strongly criticised current restrictions on terminations in these circumstances. It said they should be allowed when "the abnormality is of such a nature as to be likely to cause death before, during or in the early period after birth".
It said when a doctor had diagnosed such an abnormality the law should accept that "the continuance of such a pregnancy poses a substantial risk of serious adverse effect on [a woman's] health and wellbeing".
The diagnosis is usually made after around 20 weeks of a pregnancy. The report said modern diagnostic resources allow "very accurate information to be provided to women regarding the condition of the foetus and its viability" at that stage.
Under current laws abortion is only allowed in Northern Ireland if a woman's life is at risk or there is a risk of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health. Abortion cannot legally be performed even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormalities.
The 1967 Abortion Act, which partially decriminalised abortion in England, Wales and Scotland, does not extend to NI. There were fewer than 20 legally-sanctioned abortions in Northern Ireland in 2016.
Currently many women travel to other parts of the UK to have abortions. In June the UK government announced that they would be able to access free abortions on the NHS in England. In the following eight months 553 women made the journey to England for this reason, according to the two largest abortion providers – a rise of 14%.
In July the Welsh and Scottish governments also announced that women would be able to access free abortions under their devolved healthcare systems.
This week's report said health professionals believed the current legal constraints placed an unacceptable burden on women's health and wellbeing and the current situation was "professionally untenable". Its authors also consulted with women who had experienced diagnoses of fatal foetal abnormalities.
They concluded that "there is a substantial body of evidence to underwrite the need for legislative change".
The NSS's chief executive Stephen Evans said the report's recommendations should be implemented "as a bare minimum".
"This report sensibly draws its conclusions based on the opinions of medical experts, rather than religious groups. And on that basis there is an overwhelming case for the measures the group proposes.
"But even if these recommendations are implemented, religious groups will retain too much control over women's reproductive rights in Northern Ireland. Those making decisions that affect Northern Ireland must not allow priests to impose their dogma on those who do not share it."
Northern Ireland's health and justice ministers commissioned the report in 2016 with a view to informing the policy deliberations of the Northern Irish executive. The departments released the report this week amid an ongoing deadlock over power-sharing.
Religion is a key reason for the restrictions on abortion. DUP leader Arlene Foster, who was Northern Ireland's first minister until the current dispute in the executive, has repeatedly vowed to retain them. In 2016 she also said "the DUP is – and we make no apology for this – founded on very strong Christian values", in response to a question about the relevance of issues such as marriage and abortion to her party's identity.
In 2015 a coalition of religious groups offered "strong support" to legislation which would have introduced a 10-year prison sentence for carrying out an abortion. That year the Catholic Council for Social Affairs was also recognised as an "interested party" in a case on whether restrictions on abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality breached the European Convention on Human Rights.
The NSS has consistently campaigned against Northern Ireland's restrictions on abortion. In evidence submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council for its 2017 review of the UK, the NSS said they were out of touch with international human rights norms.
