A prominent moral theologian has urged doctors, nurses and other medical staff to engage in civil disobedience rather than accept being coerced into aiding and abetting abortions. Writing in the Irish Independent, Fr Vincent Twomey, said that the Government’s proposed abortion legislation includes a clause on “conscientious objection” according to which doctors whose conscience forbids them to kill a child in the womb at any stage of its development are obliged to refer the woman seeking abortion to another doctor, thereby co-operating in the abortion.

“This is repugnant to the meaning of conscience. It imposes a legal obligation that contradicts the moral obligation not to aid or abet evil. Apart from the doctor, other medical, pharmacy and ancillary hospital staff cannot be forced to co-operate in an abortion”, he wrote.

If the Government goes ahead with the proposed legislation, he said all medical and ancillary staff “must exercise civil disobedience”.

In conclusion, he quoted Seán MacBride, founding member of Amnesty International, who, upon receiving the Nobel Prize, affirmed that: “To the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one more might, with relevance, be added. It is ‘The Right to Refuse to Kill'” – and, Fr Twomey added, the right not to be forced to vote for, or otherwise co-operate in, such killing.