A fortnight ago, I wrote about freedom of conscience. As I was writing for a Catholic audience, I underlined that its primacy was wholly recognised by the Catholic church.

This brought forth a mixed response from people who appeared not to have heard of the church’s position on freedom of conscience, with one correspondent (misreading what I wrote) arguing that “life” must prevail in all circumstances “over conscience”.

Some of the faithful appear not to know about the church’s position, so I am setting it out with a promise not to return to this subject again.

For the record, therefore, my starting point last time was that the overriding supremacy of freedom of conscience was the fundamental issue which should inform any debate on the issue of abortion.

I linked this to the intrinsic right possessed by all women to exercise properly informed choice when it comes to what they may or may not do with their bodies in a pregnancy.

Today’s Catholic teaching about freedom of conscience goes back to the Vatican Council II.

To appreciate how human dignity became so central to Catholic social teaching, one needs to remember the dramatic last day of the Council’s last session on December 7, 1965, when the assembled bishops voted overwhelmingly on two important documents: The Declaration of Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).

Both documents had as their foundation the dignity of the human being. Both provided a new insight and framework for understanding human dignity itself.

Religious freedom included two key rights: freedom from coercion by the state and freedom to act in accordance with the truth, limiting the power of the state to force people to act against their conscience.

The documents also underlined that freedom from coercion must be allied with a freedom to adopt a positive direction in seeking and acting in accordance with the truth.

This meant all are bound to seek the truth, to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it.

Very early in The Declaration of Religious Freedom, there is an acknowledgement that the “one true religion subsists in the Catholic Church”. But the document then emphasises that “truth is to be sought in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person”.

As it explains the manner of this search, it articulates the critical understanding of conscience as it relates to the search for truth: “All people are bound to seek the truth… and to embrace the truth they come to know. … It is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force.”

The Vatical Council II declared its essential teaching that: “The human person has a right to religious freedom… immune from coercion on the part of individuals or any human power. No one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

The problem is that some people want to impose their morality on all women regardless of what women’s own consciences tell them- Martin Scicluna

When one makes a decision in conscience, seeking the truth, and the decision is different from what the church teaches, the determining factor has to be the requirements of justice, which apply to all, and not any church’s doctrine, which may be preached to all but forced on none whose conscience it offends.

The moral as well as the civic principle to be considered is the doing of justice, in particular what justice demands in regard to persons whom the church may believe to be in error.

The cardinal aspect of its teachings asserts that a person must not be prevented from acting according to conscience.

Believers of whichever faith, or none, have the right to abstain from practices they consider wrong. But they have no right of veto over others who may hold a different view.

In a liberal pluralist society (as opposed to a theocracy) it is fundamental that the distinction is maintained between the right of individuals to have religiously-based convictions, and the equal right of others not to have those religiously based convictions imposed upon them.

This is the basis for the clear separation of Church and State. 

Since the Enlightenment in the 18th century, intellectual rigour has been acknowledged as a core virtue within western civilisation.

After less than three hundred years in which truth based on the exploration of evidence has been recognised as the best guide to human affairs, there is now a movement among some to renounce this principle.

The gains of the Enlightenment are in peril. Only a decade ago, this seemed confined to the Islamic world. Yet, today, Malta has acquired its own “mullahs”, invoking cultural doctrines that threaten rationality and disputing the supremacy of conscience in seeking truth.

I do not condemn anybody for being opposed to abortion. That is their view and I respect it.

The problem is that some people want to impose their morality on all women regardless of what women’s own consciences tell them, or the medical and social circumstances surrounding the pregnancy. Like Islamic fundamentalists, they want to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies.

In Malta, Doctors for Choice and Women for Choice have every right to press for a change to Malta’s abortion laws without incurring the mindless abuse to which they have been subjected.

They should keep before their eyes the defining overwhelming vote in Ireland which dropped its near-absolute ban on abortion two years ago.