Scotland's Pro-Life Problem

There are around six months until Scottish voters head to the polls in May 2026. A key issue to consider for those who identify as ‘pro-life’ amongst these voters is Scottish Green Party MSP Gillian Mackay’s recent plans to campaign to decriminalise abortion. There have been no plans as of now from any political party within the Scottish Parliament to withdraw the root of the problem: legal abortion. The normalisation of legal abortion has led to these barbaric new proposals. 

I choose the emotive adjective ‘barbaric’ because underneath the sugarcoating term ‘decriminalisation’ of abortion, lies a brutal reality: abortion up-to-birth. It will become legal in Scotland for any relevant doctor to terminate the innocent life of an unborn child at any stage in a pregnancy, free of any penalty. Furthermore, to reaffirm the scale of the threat of the culture of death in Scotland, its Parliament is currently reviewing legislation at that would legalise assisted suicide. It recently passed at the Bill’s first stage back in May, 70 in favour, to 56 against. Political parties in Parliament have been more resistant to this legislation, so credit where credit is due. However, none of these parties have proposed that the right to life should be enshrined in Scottish law, from conception to natural death. Assisted suicide is a separate debate and one of complex reasoning, so I briefly use this example to reiterate the point of the lack of pro-life parliamentarians and the dire culture of death that Scotland faces. A campaign led by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has vividly opposed this legislation. I say go further and explicitly encourage voting pro-life at election time.

As a young graduate, who has faced many challenges at university for speaking up for the unborn and other vulnerable groups in society, I have noticed a significant problem in Scotland. This problem is indifference on the issue of abortion which significantly increases at election time. From my experience, amongst the pro-life community in Scotland, there has been a lack of emphasis on voting pro-life. Of course, pro-lifers should campaign socially, at all levels of society, to make abortion unthinkable. However, I also stress the importance of examining one’s conscience when voting for a political party. If a party supports abortion or tolerates abortion simply depending on criteria based upon a child’s development in the womb, it is thus not pro-life. Therefore, it should be unthinkable to vote for these parties. 

There are currently movements against the mainstream to fill the pro-life void in politics such as the Scottish Family Party and Vote Life. The pro-life movement should unite in Scotland into one force on polling day and get involved during the campaign. Although political parties may be imperfect, it is very hard to see how unless Scottish pro-lifers unite into one force in a political context, there will be no adoption of pro-life values in the mainstream political atmosphere. If tomorrow, a political party in the Scottish Parliament adopted the pro-life stance, I would vote for them. However, I do not see this happening in the modernist and ‘progressive’ culture that so many politicians wish to uphold. This is why I boldly make a suggestion of who is the leading political voice for the unborn, despite my personal distrust for politicians.

As a Catholic, it is morally incompatible with basic teaching to be pro-abortion. In 2022, census figures reported Roman Catholics made up 13.3% of the Scottish Population. Assuming this populace is fully eligible to vote, it is a significant proportion of the wider electorate. Scottish Catholic leaders need to be visibly adamant in their defence of human life. Furthermore, reiterating the incompatibility of Catholic Social Teaching and supporting abortion. If this were to be presented with serious unambiguous messaging from Bishops and Clergy, it may pave the way for at least one pro-life voice in Scottish Parliament. I am not calling for the Church to become a political party, but to raise its voice louder.

So, we must act now. Get involved in the pro-life movement for the sake of the innocent lives that are lost every day, regardless of your views on Scottish Constitutional affairs which have divided our nation since the Middle Ages. The first issue on the ballot must be the pro-life issue. I also wish to reiterate, that with pro-life policy, must come supporting policy for vulnerable women and families who may have chosen or are considering abortion. The message must be that there is hope and healing for any person who has made the tragic decision to end a pregnancy. Policies should also promote a culture of Family and Life, as is both consistent for Scottish Catholics, but also for Scotland as whole. These two values being the tenets of our nation. 

Scotland faces a culture of death, including: 

• Potential abortion up-to-birth.  
• Abortion pills by post as is legal on certain grounds
• Assisted suicide
• IVF
• Buffer Zones criminalising silent prayer around abortion services

What is next? Patrick Harvie, a Scottish Green MSP, suggests Buffer Zones surrounding assisted suicide services (See amendment 127). 

To be pro-life must include voting pro-life, otherwise we cannot complain about the reality that Scotland faces if no action is taken. In pro-life hero St. Maximillian Kolbe’s words: “The most deadly poison of our time is indifference.”