We don’t normally comment on abortion on this blog and in fact this blog isn’t really about abortion at all, but rather about the conscience rights of doctors and of medical institutions like hospitals and the attempt by abortion supporters to severely curtail if not eliminate those rights.

A few weeks ago the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe debated something called the McCafferty Report that sought to force even religious hospitals to perform abortions in the name of ‘human rights’ and to force doctors and nurses to perform ‘emergency’ abortions where no other doctor or nurse was available to perform it instead.

Writing in The Guardian on Wednesday, Leslie Cannold makes an impassioned case in favour of curtailing the right of doctors to conscientiously object to performing abortions and eliminating altogether the right of hospitals not to perform them.

She advises doctors who do have a conscientious objection to abortion that they can always go to prison instead! Even the Soviet Union would have been happy with this version of ‘freedom’ of conscience.

She cloaks her argument entirely in the language of human rights, in much the same way as those who objected to a conscience clause being added to the Civil Partnership Bill. In the case of that Bill supporters of a conscience clause were told that they could not be exempted from their ‘obligation’ not to discriminate.

Cannold says in effect that no-one can be exempted from their obligation not to uphold the ‘human rights’ of women.

Alarmingly Cannold confidently declares that a “consensus” on the issue is emerging and what she outlines is basically what was contained in the McCafferty report (which thankfully was defeated).

The battle over freedom of conscience is intensifying daily and it is under severe and growing threat.

Finally, note how Cannold completely and utterly wipes out the right of life of the unborn. That such a right exists isn’t even entertained.