Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
Scotland Tonight looked at the issue of conscientious objection by health care workers following the successful appeal of midwives against an order to delegate, supervise, or support staff involved in providing abortions.
Discussion participants were Paul Tully of the pro-life group, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, health journalist Pennie Taylor and employment lawyer Donald MacKinnon.
A panel of judges of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland, has ruled in favour of two midwives appealing a 2012 decision by a judge of the same court. Lady Dorrian, Lord Mackay of Drumadoon and Lord McEwan have ruled that the midwifery sisters, Mary Doogan, and Concepta Wood, cannot be compelled to supervise the provison of abortion by the National Health Services of Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
The two women were labour ward co-ordinators at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow and had long identified themselves as having conscientious objection to abortion. However, in 2007, when the labour ward was made responsible for abortions, they were ordered to supervise, support and delegate staff providing the procedure. They challenged the order as a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights on the grounds that it made them morally complicit in abortion by requiring their participation in the process of providing it.
The appelate judges said, “In our view the right of conscientious objection extends not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose.” [Text of the ruling]
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is considering an appeal of the decision. [Herald Scotland] [The Telegraph]
A panel of three judges in Edinburgh is hearing arguments in an appeal by two midwives who were ordered to supervise provision of abortion in the National Health Service Greater Glasgow and Clyde region. A lower court ruled that the protection of conscience provision in the 1967 Abortion Act did not apply to them. [BBC] The case turns upon the definition of “participation,” which is not set out in the Act.
Two midwives who were ordered to supervise the provision of abortions are appealing the decision of the Court of Session in Edinburgh against freedom of conscience.[Herald Scotland]
Two Catholic midwives will appeal a ruling by the Court of Session in Edinburgh that they must facilitate abortions by supervising and supporting nurses involved with the procedure. [BBC]